The energy spectrometer for particles (ESP): Instrument description and orbital performance

The ESP detector is functionally described, along with the pertinent orbital and spin properties of the spacecraft that supports it. The phoswiched plastic/BGO scintillators sensor design, electronic implementation, and resulting data types are recounted, and the ground calibration procedures are reported. Several illustrative examples of data are given, including the solar proton event of 29 September 1989, and the nearly periodic episodes of high relativistic electron flux that are associated with solar coronal holes which have been a dominant feature of the space weather over the past few years. 2 refs., 10 figs., 1 tab

Impulsive ion acceleration in earth's outer magnetosphere

Considerable observational evidence is found that ions are accelerated to high energies in the outer magnetosphere during geomagnetic disturbances. The acceleration often appears to be quite impulsive causing temporally brief (10's of seconds), very intense bursts of ions in the distant plasma sheet as well as in the near-tail region. These ion bursts extend in energy from 10's of keV to over 1 MeV and are closely associated with substorm expansive phase onsets. Although the very energetic ions are not of dominant importance for magnetotail plasma dynamics, they serve as an important tracer population. Their absolute intensity and brief temporal appearance bespeaks a strong and rapid acceleration process in the near-tail, very probably involving large induced electric fields substantially greater than those associated with cross-tail potential drops. Subsequent to their impulsive acceleration, these ions are injected into the outer trapping regions forming ion ''drift echo'' events, as well as streaming tailward away from their acceleration site in the near-earth plasma sheet. Most auroral ion acceleration processes occur (or are greatly enhanced) during the time that these global magnetospheric events are occurring in the magnetotail. A qualitative model relating energetic ion populations to near-tail magnetic reconnection at substorm onset followed by global redistribution is quite successful in explaining the primary observational features. Recent measurements of the elemental composition and charge-states have proven valuable for showing the source (solar wind or ionosphere) of the original plasma population from which the ions were accelerated

THE EFFECTS OF THE MAJOR SOLAR STORM OF FEBRUARY 1986 AS SEEN BY ENERGETIC PARTICLE DETECTOR ON THREE NEARLY EQUIDISTANT GEOSYNCHRONOUS SATELLITES

This special issue contains contributed papers presented at the symposium "Solar Terrestrial Events in February-March 1986" (January 19, 1989, Nagoya

Calibration of an electron/proton monitor for the earth's radiation belt at 4 R/sub E/

A charged particle dosimeter (the Burst Detector Dosimeter or BDD) was designed and fabricated and will be flown on certain of the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) series of spacecraft. The BDD will monitor the dose received by the GPS spacecraft from the fluxes of electrons and protons in the Earth's radiation belt. The BDD uses absorbers in front of silicon sensors to determine the energy thresholds for measuring incident particle fluxes; and the magnitude of energy loss in a single sensor distinguishes between ions and electrons over a wide range of energies. Our electron calibrations were performed to determine accurately the energy response function of the dosimeter. The experimentally determined energy and angular responses are used to determine the equivalent energy thresholds and geometric factors for idealized step function responses

Observations of magnetospheric substorms occurring with no apparent solar wind/IMF trigger

An outstanding topic in magnetospheric physics is whether substorms are always externally triggered by disturbances in either the interplanetary magnetic field or solar wind, or whether they can also occur solely as the result of an internal magnetospheric instability. Over the past decade, arguments have been made on both sides of this issue. Horwitz and McPherron have shown examples of substorm onsets which they claimed were not externally triggered. However, as pointed out by Lyons, there are several problems associated with these studies that make their results somewhat inconclusive. In particular, in the McPherron et al. study, fluctuations in the B{sub y} component were not considered as possible triggers. Furthermore, Lyons suggests that the sharp decreases in the AL index during intervals of steady IMF/solar wind, are not substorms at all but rather that they are just enhancements of the convection driven DP2 current system that are often observed to occur during steady magnetospheric convection events. In the present study, we utilize a much more comprehensive dataset (consisting of particle data from the Los Alamos energetic particle detectors at geosynchronous orbit, IMP 8 magnetometer and plasma data, Viking UV auroral imager data, mid-latitude Pi2 pulsation data, ground magnetometer data and ISEE1 magnetic field and energetic particle data) to show as unambiguously as possible that typical substorms can indeed occur in the absence of an identifiable trigger in the solar wind/IMF

Correlated Interball/ground-based observations of isolated substorm: The pseudobreakup phase

International audienceWe study the isolated substorm that occurred after a long quiet period, which showed all of the substorm signatures except for the first half hour of the expansion phase, which could be characterized as a pseudobreakup sequence, rather than a full-scale substorm onset. During the considered event, the substorm's instability leads to a current disruption, which starts at the near-Earth plasma sheet and then propagates tailward. Based on auroral observations, the analysis of geosynchronous plasma injections, and the plasma sheet observations at ~15 RE at the meridian of auroral substorm development we show that (1) before and probably during "pseudobreakup phase", the plasma sheet stayed cold and dense, (2) during the pseudobreakup phase, particle injections at 6.6 RE were only seen in unusually low energy components, and (3) the electron precipitation into the ionosphere was very soft. We conclude that the basic difference between pseudobreakups and "real" substorm activations was found in the low energy of all manifestations. We suggest that high density and low electron temperature in the plasma sheet are the reasons for low energization in the magnetic reconnection operated on closed field lines in the plasma sheet, as well as the weak field-aligned acceleration, as predicted by the Knight's relationship. The low Hall conductivity could then be the reason for the weak ground magnetic effects observed. This explanation suggests that the role of the ionospheric conductivity is "passive" as the plasma sheet, rather than the ionosphere, controls the development of the magnetospheric instability

Composition and energetics of solar flare particle events measured by satellites, 1989--1991

The Synchronous Orbit Particle Analyzer (SOPA), on board the satellite 1989-046 and others, has detected ions from carbon through nickel at energies from 2 to 50 MeV in the great solar energetic particle events of the current solar cycle. Energetic protons from the same events have been detected by the Charged Particle Analyzer (CPA) on board the satellite 1984-129 and others. We present here a collection of data from these various instruments that includes events of 1989, 1990, and 1991. We demonstrate the association of the events detected by the satellites with solar flares, and examine local solar wind features that in some instances alter the flux. We determine the ionic composition of the events, and compare these compositions among the various events and with those events, and compare these compositions among the various events and with those found in events of previous solar cycles. We obtain time-histories of the energetic particle fluxes, resolved both by ion species and by energy range. These detailed histories are of use, in conjunction with other data, in determining the parameters of the acceleration region

BDD: a dosimeter for the Global Positioning System

This report describes the design and operation of the BDD, a four-channel spectrometer carried by some satellites of the Global Positioning System to collect data about magnetically trapped particle fluxes. The methods of data collection and analysis are also discussed

Particle acceleration from reconnection in the geomagnetic tail

Acceleration of charged particles in the near geomagnetic tail, associated with a dynamic magnetic reconnection process, was investigated by a combined effort of data analysis, using Los Alamos data from geosynchronous orbit, MHD modeling of the dynamic evolution of the magnetotail, and test particle tracing in the electric and magnetic fields obtained from the MHD simulation