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Field line dependence of magnetospheric electron density
Author(s) -
Denton R. E.,
Goldstein J.,
Menietti J. D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2002gl015963
Subject(s) - plasmasphere , physics , electron density , electron , line (geometry) , radius , field line , polar , atomic physics , orbit (dynamics) , magnetic field , field (mathematics) , computational physics , magnetosphere , mathematics , geometry , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics , computer security , computer science , engineering , aerospace engineering
Observations of the electron density n e based on measurement of the upper hybrid resonance frequency by the Polar spacecraft Plasma Wave Instrument (PWI) are available for March, 1996 to September, 1997, during which time the Polar orbit sampled all MLT values three times. Using this data set, we assume a power law form for the electron density dependence along field lines n e = n e0 ( R max / R ) α , where n e0 is the equatorial electron density and R max ≈ LR E is the maximum geocentric radius R to any point on the field line, and model the statistical average of α as α model = 8.0 − 3.0 log 10 n e 0 + 0.28 (log 10 n e 0 ) 2 − 0.43( R max / R E ) for all categories of plasma (plasmasphere and plasmatrough), with an average error of 0.65. The data set on which this result is based is limited to 2.5 R E ≤ R max ≤ 8.5 R E , 2 R E ≤ R ≤ R max , and 2 ≤ n e0 ≤ 1500 cm −3 . There is no remaining dependence of the average α – α model on MLT or Kp.