Abstracts submitted by Antoinette Galvin
The Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition Experiment on STEREO - Early Results
A. Galvin [1], L. Kistler [1], M. Popecki [1], C. Farrugia [1], K. Simunac [1], A. Gustafson [1], J. Barry [1], L. Blush [2], B. Klecker [3], R. Wimmer [4], B. Thompson [5] and the STEREO TEAM
[1]EOS UNH,USA; [2]U Bern; Switzerland[3]; MPE, Germany; [4]U Kiel, Germany; [5]NASA/GSFC, USA
Two identical Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition (PLASTIC) instruments are now flying on the STEREO A and B observatories, which launched in October 2006. PLASTIC together with the IMPACT suite provides the in-situ measurements for the STEREO mission, while the SECCHI suite and S/WAVES provide remote sensing.
PLASTIC is an ion mass spectrometer with measurements in the energy-per-charge range of
0.3-80 keV/e. The PLASTIC solar wind sector measures solar wind proton bulk parameters (speed, flow direction, density, kinetic temperature) and also measures the more dominant solar wind minor (Z>2) ions. The suprathermal section of the instrument measuresions accelerated under local shock conditions, pickup ions, and the suprathermal tails of solar wind distributions.
Thus far, the dominant solar wind features since launch have been a series of recurrent high and low speed solar wind streams and their interaction regions. In this poster we provide an overview of the initial observations of solar wind and suprathermal ions (including pickup ions), particularly in the CIR-related compression regions, other transient phenomena that may occur, and discuss possibilities for correlation studies. |
|
|