Heavy Ion Temperature Anisotropies in the Venus Plasma Environment
2021 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
In a plasma environment particles and plasma waves have complex interactions and can affect each other significantly. The velocity distribution functions (VDFs) can effectively be used to try and understand these interactions. This study uses VDFs to investigate heavy ion temperatures in the Venusian plasma environment. A Maxwellian fitting methodology previously used to obtain proton plasma parameters is used to obtain plasma parameters for heavy ions instead. Ion and magnetic-field data are gathered from the ion mass analyser IMA and the magnetometer MAG which were on board the European spacecraft Venus Express. The temperature anisotropies are analysed to see if they may affect the observed plasma waves around Venus. Spatial maps of the obtained plasma parameters are presented, and the average values are shown. The temperature ratio T⊥/T∥ is calculated to look for anisotropies. Case studies were made to investigate how well the methodology worked with heavy ion data. The methodology is shown to work well in the magnetotail, where heavy ions are expected, and less well in the magnetosheath and solar wind, where heavy ions were not expected. No statistically significant anisotropies were found for the heavy ions in the Venusian plasma environment.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 32
Keywords [en]
Space Physics, Plasma, Venus, Heavy Ion
National Category
Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-85096OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-85096DiVA, id: diva2:1562376
External cooperation
Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Subject / course
Student thesis, at least 30 credits
Educational program
Space Engineering, master's level
Supervisors
Examiners
2021-06-092021-06-082021-06-09Bibliographically approved