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Автори: Koontaweepunya, Rattanakorn, Dimant, Yakov S., Oppenheim, Meers M.
Формат: Preprint
Опубліковано: 2024
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Онлайн доступ:https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06339
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author Koontaweepunya, Rattanakorn
Dimant, Yakov S.
Oppenheim, Meers M.
author_facet Koontaweepunya, Rattanakorn
Dimant, Yakov S.
Oppenheim, Meers M.
contents Strong electric fields in the auroral and equatorial electrojets can distort the background ion distribution function away from Maxwellian. We developed a collisional plasma kinetic model using the Boltzmann equation and a simple BGK collision operator which predicts a relatively simple relationship between the intensity of the background electric field and the resulting ion distribution function. To test the model, we perform 3-D plasma particle-in-cell simulations and compare the results to the model. The simulation applies an elastic collision operator assuming a constant ion-neutral collision rate. These simulations show less ion heating in the Pedersen direction than the analytic model but show similar overall heating. The model overestimates the heating in the Pedersen direction because the simple BGK operator includes no angular collisional scattering in the ion velocity space. On the other hand, the fully-kinetic particle-in-cell code is able to capture the physics of ion scattering in 3-D and therefore heats ions more isotropically. Although the simple BGK analytic theory does not precisely model the non-Maxwellian ion distribution function, it does capture the overall momentum and energy flows and therefore can provide the basis of further analysis of E-region wave evolution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_06339
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Non-Maxwellian Ion Distribution in the Equatorial and Auroral Electrojets
Koontaweepunya, Rattanakorn
Dimant, Yakov S.
Oppenheim, Meers M.
Plasma Physics
Space Physics
Strong electric fields in the auroral and equatorial electrojets can distort the background ion distribution function away from Maxwellian. We developed a collisional plasma kinetic model using the Boltzmann equation and a simple BGK collision operator which predicts a relatively simple relationship between the intensity of the background electric field and the resulting ion distribution function. To test the model, we perform 3-D plasma particle-in-cell simulations and compare the results to the model. The simulation applies an elastic collision operator assuming a constant ion-neutral collision rate. These simulations show less ion heating in the Pedersen direction than the analytic model but show similar overall heating. The model overestimates the heating in the Pedersen direction because the simple BGK operator includes no angular collisional scattering in the ion velocity space. On the other hand, the fully-kinetic particle-in-cell code is able to capture the physics of ion scattering in 3-D and therefore heats ions more isotropically. Although the simple BGK analytic theory does not precisely model the non-Maxwellian ion distribution function, it does capture the overall momentum and energy flows and therefore can provide the basis of further analysis of E-region wave evolution.
title Non-Maxwellian Ion Distribution in the Equatorial and Auroral Electrojets
topic Plasma Physics
Space Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06339