The anisotropy of suprathermal electrons in the Martian ionosphere

Suprathermal electrons are an important population of the Martian ionosphere, either produced by photoionization of atmospheric neutrals or supplied from the Solar Wind (SW). This study is dedicated to an in-depth investigation of the pitch angle distribution of suprathermal electrons at two representative energies, 19−55 eV and 124−356 eV, using the extensive measurements made by the Solar Wind Electron Analyzer on board the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. Throughout the study, we focus on the overall degree of anisotropy, defined as the standard deviation of suprathermal electron intensity among different directions which is normalized by the mean omni-directional intensity. The available data reveal the following characteristics: (1) In general, low energy electrons are more isotropic than high energy electrons, and dayside electrons are more isotropic than nightside electrons;(2) On the dayside, the anisotropy increases with increasing altitude at low energies but remains roughly constant at high energies, whereas on the nightside, the anisotropy decreases with increasing altitude at all energies;(3) Electrons tend to be more isotropic in strongly magnetized regions than in weakly magnetized regions, especially on the nightside. These observations indicate that the anisotropy is a useful diagnostic of suprathermal electron transport, for which the conversion between the parallel and perpendicular momenta as required by the conservation of the first adiabatic invariant, along with the atmospheric absorption at low altitudes, are two crucial factors modulating the observed variation of the anisotropy. Our analysis also highlights the different roles on the observed anisotropy exerted by suprathermal electrons of different origins.

Proton Cyclotron Instability Threshold Condition of Suprathermal Protons by Kappa Distribution

Observation has clearly shown that natural space plasmas generally possess a pronounced non-Maxwellian high-energy tail distribution that can be well modeled by a kappa distribution. In this study we investigate the proton cyclotron wave instability driven by the temperature anisotropy （T⊥/TH 〉1） of suprathermal protons modeled with a typical kappa distribution in the magnetosheath. It is found that as in the case for a regular bi-Maxwellian, the supratherreal proton temperature anisotropy is subject to the threshold condition of this proton cyclotron instability and the instability threshold condition satisfies a general form T⊥/T｜｜ - 1 = S/β｜｜^α, with a very narrow range of the fitting parameters： 0.40 ≤ α ≤ 0.45, and a relatively sensitive variation 0.27 ≤ S ≤ 0.65, over 0.01 ≤β｜｜ 〈 10. Furthermore, the difference in threshold conditions between the kappa distribution and the bi-Maxwellian distribution is found to be small for a relatively strong growth but becomes relatively obvious for a weak wave growth. The results may provide a deeper insight into the physics of this instability threshold for the proton cyclotron waves.

Suprathermal particle events observed by WIND spacecraft in interplanetary space during 1995―1999 and their classification

Fifty-five suprathermal particle events were selected from WIND observations between 1995 and 1999. Based on systematic analysis on the observational characteristics of these events a two-parameter (the rising time and the flux ratio of electrons to protons in each event) classification method was proposed to classify these events. The three clas-sified classes are (1) impulsive electron events with the flux ratio of electrons to protons being bigger than 1 and rising time being shorter than 200 min, (2) impulsive proton events with the flux ratio being smaller than 1 and rising time being shorter than 200 min, and (3) gradual proton events with the flux ratio being smaller than 1 and the rising time being longer than 200 min. In the past, "impulsive solar electron events" were under in-tense research. However, because the selection standards of their velocity dispersions or pitch-angle distributions were inadequate, statistical surveys of selected events were dif-ferent from each other and even some conclusions were not consistent with the theory, for example, the relation of type-III solar radio bursts to the "impulsive solar electron events". The first class of impulsive electron events are associated with type-III radio bursts and with clear velocity dispersions; therefore they ought to originate from the Sun. The second class of the events, which have short continuance time and usually are not associated with type-III radio bursts and without velocity dispersion, are still far away from inter-planetary shocks and most of them do not one-to-one correspond to corrotating interact-ing regions (CIRs); such events are possible results of local interplanetary magnetic field reconnection or electromagnetic disturbances. Finally, about 2/3 gradual proton events of the third class occur with interplanetary shocks, the delay times of which are almost equal to the rising time. Some of these events can be understood as particle accelerations by shocks.

Effect of kappa distribution on the damping rate of the obliquely propagating magnetosonic mode

Data from spacecrafts suggest that space plasma has an abundance of suprathermal particles which are controlled by the spectral index κ when modeled on kappa particle velocity distribution. In this paper, considering homogeneous plasma, the effect of integer values of κ on the damping rate of an obliquely propagating magnetosonic（MS） wave is studied. The frequency of the MS wave is assumed to be less than ion cyclotron frequency, i.e.,iw（28）w. Under this assumption, the dispersion relation is investigated both numerically and analytically, and it is found that the real frequency of the wave is not a sensitive function of κ, but the imaginary part of the frequency is. It is also shown that for those values of κ where a large number of resonant particles participate in wave–particle interaction, the wave is heavily damped, as expected. The possible application of the results to the solar wind is discussed.