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Observational evidence on the origin of ions upstream of the earth's bow shockThe kinematic formalism described by Schwartz et al. (1983) is used to quantitatively compare the zeroth order predicted energies for four different source hypotheses for ions detected upstream of the earth's bow shock with previously published observations of upstream field-aligned beams and gyrating ion events. Specular reflection of a fraction of the incident solar wind is found to be the most credible explanation of gyrating ion events observed upstream of shocks ranging from quasi-parallel to nearly perpendicular. The recent hypothesis that field-aligned beams are the result of leakage from the magnetosheath of ions which were originally specularly reflected at quasi-perpendicular portions of the shock provides good agreement with observed energies of many field-aligned beams. Only magnetic moment conserving reflection of solar wind ions is capable of accounting for two very energetic beam events.
Document ID
19830065829
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Thomsen, M. F.
(Los Alamos Scientific Lab. NM, United States)
Gosling, J. T.
(Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM, United States)
Schwartz, S. J.
(Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM; Queen Mary College London, United Kingdom)
Date Acquired
August 11, 2013
Publication Date
October 1, 1983
Publication Information
Publication: Journal of Geophysical Research
Volume: 88
ISSN: 0148-0227
Subject Category
Geophysics
Accession Number
83A47047
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS10-23726
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASA ORDER S-50864-A
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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