A Theoretical Investigation of Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interactions and Astrophysical Plasma Phenomena.

摘要

The research reported here is directed towards an understanding of solar wind magnetosphere interactions and astrophysical plasma phenomena. Since approximately twenty-five (25) scientific papers were produced during the tenure of this contract we give here a complete list of the papers (by title and Journal) produced during this contract together with abstracts where available (two of the papers were papers presented at conferences, and one is an invited review of others' work; for these we do not deem it worthwhile to give abstracts). In essence the research can be divided into three catagories. First, some of the basic plasma physic of the cosmic rays transported to Earth has been considered in order to ascertain the bahavior of such particles under the diverse conditions which obtain in the interplanetary medium. Second, there is the sequence of papers dealing with the propagation through, and reflection from, differentially moving media. The motivation here was originally suggested by the escape of radiation from pulsar magnetospheres but the problem is of more general interest. It has application to radar backscatter from the ionosphere, and to radiation passing through both the interplanetory medium and the magnetosphere. Finally there is the work on the pair production in strong magnetic fields which is a process often invoked to account for the observed emission from pulsars. There are also several isolated papers dealing with miscellaneous topics. Of these the work on blast wave theory applied to supernova remnants has progressed considerably further since our early work on the subject reported here under the category of papers to be published. (Author)