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Aerosol nucleation induced by a high energy particle beam
Author(s) -
Enghoff Martin B.,
Pedersen Jens Olaf Pepke,
Uggerhøj Ulrik I.,
Paling Sean M.,
Svensmark Henrik
Publication year - 2011
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 - 10.1029/2011gl047036
Subject(s) - nucleation , aerosol , ionization , sulfuric acid , ion , particle (ecology) , materials science , beam (structure) , atomic physics , atmosphere (unit) , chemistry , physics , optics , meteorology , thermodynamics , geology , oceanography , organic chemistry , metallurgy
We have studied sulfuric acid aerosol nucleation in an atmospheric pressure reaction chamber using a 580 MeV electron beam to ionize the volume of the reaction chamber. We find a clear contribution from ion‐induced nucleation and consider this to be the first unambiguous observation of the ion‐effect on aerosol nucleation using a particle beam under conditions that resemble the Earth's atmosphere. By comparison with ionization using a gamma source we further show that the nature of the ionizing particles is not important for the ion‐induced component of the nucleation. This implies that inexpensive ionization sources ‐ as opposed to expensive accelerator beams ‐ can be used for investigations of ion‐induced nucleation.