Suprathermal electrons at Earth's bow shock

Journal Article · Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1989 · Journal of Geophysical Research; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/JA094iA08p10011· OSTI ID:5597596

Gosling, J T; Thomsen, M F; Bame, S J ^[1]; Russell, C T ^[2]

---

1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico (US)
2. University of California, Los Angeles

A hot, suprathermal population of electrons is often present near the Earth's bow shock. The overall morphology of this hot population as observed with the Los Alamos/Garching fast plasma experiments on ISEE 1 and 2 in the energy range from 1 to 20 keV is much as described previously by others working primarily with more energetic particle measurements. In particular, at energies below 20 keV the flux of suprathermal electrons is most intense immediately downstream from the shock and decreases in intensity with increasing penetration into the magnetosheath. Upstream fluxes of electrons in this energy range are generally considerably weaker than are the downstream fluxes. The major new results from our ISEE measurements are as follows: (1) The suprathermal electrons are commonly found downstream from perpendicular and quasi-perpendicular portions of the shock but not downstream from quasi-parallel portions. (2) The suprathermal electron spectrum extends smoothly out of the shocked solar wind spectrum generally as a power law in energy with an exponent in the range from {minus}3 to {minus}4. (3) Angular distributions for the suprathermal electrons are generally isotropic immediately downstream of the shock ramp, but an anisotropy perpendicular to the magnetic field usually develops with increasing penetration into the magnetosheath. (4) Suprathermal electrons are often first observed within the shock layer itself as a field-aligned beam escaping upstream.

• OSTI ID: 5597596
• Journal Information: Journal of Geophysical Research; (USA), Vol. 94:A8; ISSN 0148-0227
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
MAGNETOSHEATH
SHOCK WAVES
ANGULAR DISTRIBUTION
ELECTRON DENSITY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
INTERPLANETARY MAGNETIC FIELDS
MACH NUMBER
SOLAR WIND
DATA
DISTRIBUTION
INFORMATION
MAGNETIC FIELDS
NUMERICAL DATA
SOLAR ACTIVITY
VELOCITY
640201* - Atmospheric Physics- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena