On the Fitting of Ion-Ion Drifting Plasma
- Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California 92521 (United States)
- Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824 (United States)
It has been known for almost three decades that the solar wind proton population can often be represented as a sum of two proton distribution components of nearly equal temperatures with the diluted component streaming relative to the denser component. The differential streaming speed is often near the local Alfven speed. The usual way for deriving such important quantities as a mean speed of individual proton distributions and its characteristic thermal temperature is based on separation of observed distribution into two parts and fitting them independently with a given well-defined distribution function. As we will show below this kind of analysis can be misleading when the thermal spread of the particle distributions is wide enough to make these distributions overlap. In the summary, we argue where this kind of analysis can be important.
- OSTI ID:
- 20719195
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 781, Issue 1; Conference: 4. annual IGPP international astrophysics conference, Palm Springs, CA (United States), 26 Feb - 3 Mar 2005; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2032718; (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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