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Beam‐plasma interactions as a heat source in the magnetosphere
Author(s) -
Fontheim Ernest G.
Publication year - 1975
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/gl002i004p00150
Subject(s) - magnetosphere , plasma , heat flux , thermal conduction , electron precipitation , flux (metallurgy) , atmospheric sciences , beam (structure) , physics , electron , electron temperature , atomic physics , cathode ray , materials science , computational physics , geophysics , mechanics , heat transfer , thermodynamics , nuclear physics , optics , metallurgy
Strong electron precipitation fluxes are frequently accompanied by strong downward heat conduction fluxes, deduced from simultaneous high and low altitude electron temperature measurements. It is shown that the heat input due to beam‐plasma interactions is of the correct order of magnitude to sustain the observed heat flux.