Kinetic temperatures of iron ions in the solar wind observed with STEREO/PLASTIC
Abstract
STEREO/PLASTIC provides detailed information on the three‐dimensional velocity distributions of solar wind iron ions with a time resolution of 5 minutes. In general the distributions at 1 AU contain complicated structures showing persistence over several records, i.e., over intervals of up to 30 minutes, but no clear correlation of the properties of these distributions with the direction of the ambient magnetic field is evident. We have performed a statistical analysis using nearly 9000 observations. Iron ions follow the same trends as protons, alpha particles, and electrons: The ratio T⊥/T‖ seems to be limited by the ion cyclotron instability, whereas T‖/T⊥ is bounded by the firehose instability.
Publication Date
4-2-2010
Journal Title
AIP Conference Proceedings
Publisher
AIP
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Bochsler, Peter; Lee, Martin A.; Karrer, Reto; Popecki, Mark A.; Galvin, Antoinette B.; Kistler, Lynn M.; Mobius, Eberhard; Farrugia, Charles J.; Kucharek, Harald; Simunac, Kristin D. C.; Blush, Lisa M.; Daoudi, Hagar; Wurz, Peter; Klecker, Berndt; Wimmer-Schweingruber, Robert F.; Thompson, Barbara; Luhmann, Janet G.; Jian, Lan K.; Russell, Christopher T.; Opitz, Andrea (2010). Kinetic temperatures of iron ions in the solar wind observed with STEREO/PLASTIC, TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL SOLAR WIND CONFERENCE. Vol. 1216, +. DOI: 10.1063/1.3395850