All Physics Faculty Publications

Ionospheric Photoelectrons Observed in the Magnetosphere at Distances up to 7 Earth Radii

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Planetary and Space Science

Volume

33

Issue

11

Publication Date

1985

First Page

1267

Last Page

1275

Abstract

Photoelectrons of ionospheric origin have been observed for the first time at high altitudes (up to 7RE geocentric distance) using the suprathermal plasma analysers (SPA) on the GEOS satellites. At such high altitudes the photoelectron flux is confined within a few degrees of the magnetic field direction. We show how this flux may be identified and extracted from the background which is a combination of locally produced photoelectrons and ambient plasma. GEOS-2 results are presented to illustrate the “turn-on” of the photoelectron flux at dawn in the ionosphere. Data from GEOS-1 are used to study the behaviour of the photoelectron flux with equatorial geocentric distance from 3 to 7RE. The results compare favourably with theoretical models and with ionospheric observations at mid latitudes.

Comments

Originally published by Elsevier. Publisher’s PDF available through remote link.

https://doi.org/10.1016/0032-0633(85)90005-4

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS