Energization and transport of ions of ionospheric origin in the terrestrial magnetosphere

摘要

This serves as a final report entitled Energization and Transport of Ions of Ionospheric Origin in the Terrestrial Magnetosphere. The work has been predominantly focused on ion outflows identified in two data sets: (1) Prognoz 7; and (2) Dynamics Explorer. The study analyzed ion densities, temperatures, and flow velocities in the magnetotail. The work performed under this contract consisted of developing a program to load the raw data, compute the background subtraction of a strong sun pulse, and use the net counts to calculate the low order moments of the distribution function. The study confirms the results of ISEE that the the cusp is a major source of plasmasheet plasma and goes beyond this to discuss the use of ion velocities as a way to examine the motions of the magnetotail.