A NEW APPROACH TO TRACK FINDING AND FITTING IN VECTOR DRIFT CHAMBERS
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Becker, J.↗
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Small Deflection Energy Analyzer for Energy and Angular Distributions
The development of the Small Deflection Energy Analyzer (SDEA) charged-particle spectrometer for energy and angle distributions responds to a longstanding need to measure the wind velocity vector in Earth s thermosphere, and to obtain the ion-drift vector in the ionosphere. The air and ions above 120 km are endowed with bulk velocities and temperatures just like air near the ground, but with separate spatial and temporal variations. It is important to understand these not only for study of the physics and chemistry of the Sun-Earth connection, but also for spacecraft orbit predictions, and communications through the ionosphere. The SDEA consists of a pair of parallel conducting plates separated by a small distance, with an entrance slit on one end, and an exit slit on the other. A voltage applied to these plates develops an electric field between the plates, and this field deflects ions passing through it. If an ion has too little energy, it will strike one of the plates. If it has too much, it will strike the back wall. An ion with the amount of energy being searched for will have its trajectory bent just enough to exit the back slit. The SDEA units are compact, rectangular, and operate with low voltages. The units can be built up into small arrays. These arrays could be used either to widen the field of view or to sharpen an existing one. This approach can also be used to obtain angular distributions in two planes simultaneously, thus cutting down the ion source power requirements in half. This geometry has enabled a new mass-spectrometer concept that can provide miniaturized mass spectrometers for use in industrial plants, air-pollution monitoring, and noxious-gas detection.
Herrero, Federico A.↗
Wind and Temperature Spectrometry of the Upper Atmosphere in Low-Earth Orbit
Wind and Temperature Spectrometry (WATS) is a new approach to measure the full wind vector, temperature, and relative densities of major neutral species in the Earth's thermosphere. The method uses an energy-angle spectrometer moving through the tenuous upper atmosphere to measure directly the angular and energy distributions of the air stream that enters the spectrometer. The angular distribution gives the direction of the total velocity of the air entering the spectrometer, and the energy distribution gives the magnitude of the total velocity. The wind velocity vector is uniquely determined since the measured total velocity depends on the wind vector and the orbiting velocity vector. The orbiting spectrometer moves supersonically, Mach 8 or greater, through the air and must point within a few degrees of its orbital velocity vector (the ram direction). Pointing knowledge is critical; for example, pointing errors 0.1 lead to errors of about 10 m/s in the wind. The WATS method may also be applied without modification to measure the ion-drift vector, ion temperature, and relative ion densities of major ionic species in the ionosphere. In such an application it may be called IDTS: Ion-Drift Temperature Spectrometry. A spectrometer-based coordinate system with one axis instantaneously pointing along the ram direction makes it possible to transform the Maxwellian velocity distribution of the air molecules to a Maxwellian energy-angle distribution for the molecular flux entering the spectrometer. This implementation of WATS is called the gas kinetic method (GKM) because it is applied to the case of the Maxwellian distribution. The WATS method follows from the recognition that in a supersonic platform moving at 8,000 m/s, the measurement of small wind velocities in the air on the order of a few 100 m/s and less requires precise knowledge of the angle of incidence of the neutral atoms and molecules. The same is true for the case of ion-drift measurements. WATS also provides a general approach that can obtain non-equilibrium distributions as may exist in the upper regions of the thermosphere, above 500 km and into the exosphere. Finally, WATS serves as a mass spectrometer, with very low mass resolution of roughly 1 part in 3, but easily separating atomic oxygen from molecular nitrogen.
Herrero, Federico↗
Arctic Sea Ice Motion from Wavelet Analysis of Satellite Data
Wavelet analysis of DMSP SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) 85 GHz and 37 GHz radiance data, SMMR (Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer) 37 GHz, and NSCAT (NASA Scatterometer) 13.9 GHZ data can be used to obtain daily sea ice drift information for both the northern and southern polar regions. The derived maps of sea ice drift provide both improved spatial coverage over the existing array of Arctic Ocean buoys and better temporal resolution over techniques utilizing data from satellite synthetic aperture radars (SAR). Examples of derived ice-drift maps in the Arctic illustrate large-scale circulation reversals within a period of a couple weeks. Comparisons with ice displacements derived from buoys show good quantitative agreement. NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) 13.9 GHZ data have been also used for wavelet analysis to derive sea-ice drift. First, the 40' incidence-angle, sigma-zero (surface roughness) daily map of whole Arctic region with 25 km of pixel size from satellite's 600 km swath has been constructed. Then, the similar wavelet transform procedure to SSM/I data can be applied. Various scales of wavelet transform and threshold have been tested. By overlaying , neighbor filtering, and block-averaging the results of multiscale wavelet transforms, the final sea ice drift vectors are much smooth and representative to the sea ice motion. This wavelet analysis procedure is robust and can make a major contribution to the understanding of ice motion over large areas at relatively high temporal resolutions. The results of wavelet analysis of SSM/I and NSCAT images and buoy data can be merged by some data fusion techniques and will help to improve our current knowledge of sea ice drift and related processes through the data assimilation of ocean-ice numerical model.
Liu, Antony K.↗
Crossed, Small-Deflection Energy Analyzer for Wind/Temperature Spectrometer
Determination of neutral winds and ion drifts in low-Earth-orbit missions requires measurements of the angular and energy distributions of the flux of neutrals and ions entering the satellite from the ram direction. The magnitude and direction of the neutral-wind (or ion-drift) determine the location of the maximum in the angular distribution of the flux. Knowledge of the angle of maximum flux with respect to satellite coordinates (pointing) is essential to determine the wind (or ion-drift) vector. The crossed Small-Deflection Energy Analyzer (SDEA) spectrometer (see Figure 1) occupies minimal volume and consumes minimal power. Designed for upper atmosphere/ionosphere investigations at Earth altitudes above 100 km, the spectrometer operates by detecting the angular and energy distributions of neutral atoms/molecules and ions in two mutually perpendicular planes. In this configuration, the two detection planes actually cross at the spectrometer center. It is possible to merge two SDEAs so they share a common optical axis and alternate measurements between two perpendicular planes, and reduce the number of ion sources from two to one. This minimizes the volume and footprint significantly and reduces the ion source power by a factor of two. The area of the entrance aperture affects the number of ions detected/second and also determines the energy resolution. Thermionic emitters require heater power of about 100 mW to produce 1 mA of electron beam current. Typically, electron energy is about 100 eV and requires a 100-V supply for electron acceleration to supply an additional 100 mW of power. Thus, ion source power is at most 200 mW. If two ion sources were to be used, the ion source power would be, at most, 400 mW. Detector power, deflection voltage power, and microcontroller and other functions require less than 150 mW. A WTS (wind/ temperature spectrometer) with two separate optical axes would consume about 650 mW, while the crossed SDEA described here consumes about 350 mW. The entrance aperture has a diameter of 0.004 in. (0.10 mm) to provide the required energy resolution between 0.05 and 0.15. This design (see Figure 2) provides a WTS occupying a volume less than 40 cm(sup 3), on a footprint of diameter about 1.5 in. (38 mm). The Crossed SDEA offers many advantages in the measurements of neutral wind and ion drifts in the Earth's thermosphere. As such, it will be useful in future commercial satellites dedicated to monitoring the ionosphere with a view to improving the integrity and predictability of GPS operations.
Herrero, Federico A.↗
Application of ERTS-1 data to the protection and management of New Jersey's coastal environment
The author has identified the following significant results. Rapid access to ERTS data was provided by NASA GSFC for the February 26, 1974 overpass of the New Jersey test site. Forty-seven hours following the overpass computer-compatible tapes were ready for processing at EarthSat. The finished product was ready just 60 hours following the overpass and delivered to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. This operational demonstration has been successful in convincing NJDEP as to the worth of ERTS as an operational monitoring and enforcement tool of significant value to the State. An erosion/ accretion severity index has been developed for the New Jersey shore case study area. Computerized analysis techniques have been used for monitoring offshore waste disposal dumping locations, drift vectors, and dispersion rates in the New York Bight area. A computer shade print of the area was used to identify intensity levels of acid waste. A Litton intensity slice print was made to provide graphic presentation of dispersion characteristics and the dump extent. Continued monitoring will lead to the recommendation and justification of permanent dumping sites which pose no threat to water quality in nearshore environments.
Yunghans, R. S.↗
Capabilities and limitations of EISCAT as an MST radar
The European Incoherent Scatter Radar Facility also has facilities which can be used for coherent scatter research of the middle atmosphere. The observatory consists of two independent systems which allow observations of the upper, middle, and lower atmosphere: a tristatic UHF radar capable of vector drift measurements, and a monostatic VHF system. The characteristics of the components are are described including inter-site communication, on-line displays, and the real-time operating system. Analysis of about 60 hours of middle atmosphere observations in 1982 indicate that EISCAT's capabilities to measure mesospheric parameters should improve during moderately or strongly disturbed conditions, enabling measurement of profiles of wind velocity, electron density, and temperature/collision frequency, and in some instances, ion masses. Because of not yet optimized transmit-receive switching, some limitations exist in the monostatic mode when observing coherent scattering in the stratosphere at short ranges.
Rottger, J.↗
Analytical solutions of a class of multidimensional Fokker-Planck equations
Analytical representations of the solutions of Kolmogorov's forward (i.e., Fokker-Planck) and backward partial differential equations are obtained by employing Girsanov's (1960) transformation. The equations considered are restricted to those with the drift vector being the gradient of a function and the diffusion matrix being nonsingular and dependent upon time only.
Zhang, Weijian↗
A FLEXIBLE NONLINEAR DIFFUSION ACCELERATION METHOD FOR THE FIRST ORDER EIGENVALUE SN EQUATIONS DISCRETIZED WITH DISCONTINUOUS FEM
This work describes a Nonlinear Diffusion Acceleration (NDA) method for the first order SN equations that discretizes both the transport equation and the associated diffusion system using discontinuous finite elements; the diffusion system is solved on a potentially coarser mesh and with a coarser energy group structure than the SN equations. The developed method differs from current methods by allowing the SN and diffusion system to be discretized with arbitrary FEM bases and by using an additive update of the SN system. The benefit of this capability is extension of the stability region to optically thicker mesh cells and stability without the necessity to underrelax the iterative algorithm. The presented method introduces the notion of consistency of the SN and diffusion solutions and derives suitable definitions of the cross sections, drift vectors, and element face closures. The NDA equations are solved using a Picard iteration scheme. Numerical results are presented for the C5G7 benchmark problem highlighting the effectiveness of the methods when deployed with the diffusion system discretized on the same mesh as the SN system. Additional results are presented for cases where the diffusion system features a coarser mesh, coarser energy group structure, or both, demonstrating its stability and effectiveness in these cases. It is observed that the effectiveness of the NDA method reduces when reducing the resolution of the associated diffusion system.
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
Spacebased Estimation of Moisture Transport in Marine Atmosphere Using Support Vector Regression
An improved algorithm is developed based on support vector regression (SVR) to estimate horizonal water vapor transport integrated through the depth of the atmosphere ((Theta)) over the global ocean from observations of surface wind-stress vector by QuikSCAT, cloud drift wind vector derived from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) and geostationary satellites, and precipitable water from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I). The statistical relation is established between the input parameters (the surface wind stress, the 850 mb wind, the precipitable water, time and location) and the target data ((Theta) calculated from rawinsondes and reanalysis of numerical weather prediction model). The results are validated with independent daily rawinsonde observations, monthly mean reanalysis data, and through regional water balance. This study clearly demonstrates the improvement of (Theta) derived from satellite data using SVR over previous data sets based on linear regression and neural network. The SVR methodology reduces both mean bias and standard deviation comparedwith rawinsonde observations. It agrees better with observations from synoptic to seasonal time scales, and compare more favorably with the reanalysis data on seasonal variations. Only the SVR result can achieve the water balance over South America. The rationale of the advantage by SVR method and the impact of adding the upper level wind will also be discussed.
Support vector regression↗
Drift velocities and thermal flux vectors in a seeded plasma with magnetic fields.
Drift velocities and thermal flux vectors in five component nonequilibrium plasma in presence of electric and magnetic fields, using Grad method
Hassan, H. A.↗
A comparison of in situ measurements of vector-E and - vector-V x vector-B from Dynamics Explorer 2
Dynamics Explorer-2 provided the first opportunity to make a direct comparison of in situ measurements of the high-latitude convection electric field by two distinctly different techniques. The vector electric field instrument (VEFI) used antennae to measure the intrinsic electric fields and the ion drift meter (IDM) and retarding potential analyzer (RPA) measured the ion drift velocity vector, from which the convection electric field can be deduced. The data from three orbits having large electric fields at high latitude are presented, one at high, one at medium, and one at low altitudes. The general agreement between the two measurements of electric field is very good, with typical differences at high latitudes of the order of a few millivolts per meter, but there are some regions where the particle fluxes are extremely large (e.g., the cusp) and the disagreement is worse, probably because of IDM difficulties. The auroral zone potential patterns derived from the two devices are in excellent agreement for two of the cases, but not in the third, where bad attitude data may be the problem. At low latitudes there are persistent differences in the measurements of a few millivolts per meter, though these differences are quite constant from orbit to orbit. This problem seems to arise from some shortcoming in the VEFI measurments. Overall, however, these measurements confirm the concept of `frozen-in' plasma that drifts with velocity vector-E x vector-B/B(exp 2) within the measurement errors of the two techniques.
Hanson, W. B.↗
Ion temperature anisotropy and heat flow in the Venus lower ionosphere
Motivated by the recent observations of supersonic ion flow in the Venus ionosphere near the terminator, the paper studies the extent to which such a flow can induce an ion temperature anisotropy and a diffusion-thermal heat flow. Calculations indicate that appreciable ion temperature anisotropies can be induced at altitudes below about 220 km. The temperature anisotropy is with respect to the ion-neutral relative drift velocity vector, with the ion temperature parallel to the relative drift velocity greater than the perpendicular ion temperature. The parallel to perpendicular ion temperature ratio is likely to be in the range of from 2 to 4, depending on the ionospheric conditions. It is also found that in the same ionospheric region the ion neutral relative drift induces a diffusion-thermal heat flow that is considerably more important than ordinary ion thermal conduction.
Schunk, R. W.↗
Ponderomotive force in the presence of electric fields
This paper presents averaged equations of particle motion in an electromagnetic wave of arbitrary frequency with its wave vector directed along the ambient magnetic field. The particle is also subjected to an E(vector sign) Multiplication-Sign B(vector sign) drift and a background electric field slowly changing in space and acting along the magnetic field line. The fields, wave amplitude, and the wave vector depend on the coordinate along the magnetic field line. The derivations of the ponderomotive forces are done by assuming that the drift velocity in the ambient magnetic field is comparable to the particle velocity. Such a scenario leads to new ponderomotive forces, dependent on the wave magnetic field intensity, and, as a result, to the additional energy exchange between the wave and the plasma particles. It is found that the parallel electric field can lead to the change of the particle-wave energy exchange rate comparable to that produced by the previously discussed ponderomotive forces.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
Studies of dynamo field structure and related effects: DE satellite project guest investigator program
The establishment of the latitudinal and longitudinal structure of the low latitude dynamo electric (DE) field was initiated using data primarily from the Unified Abstract (UA) files of the Atmosphere Explorer E (AE-E) satellite. Mass plots of the vertical ion drift values were made for 1977, 1978, and 1979. The average diurnal variation of V sub v within 20 degrees of the dip equator is remarkably similar to that obtained at Jicamarca in the same years. The average meridional ion drift velocity vectors, obtained as a function of latitude by combining the average vertical and horizontal (nearly north-south) ion drift values from the AE-E, showed the expected variations with local time and season based on the well known equatorial fountain effect theory. The average diurnal variation of the vertical drift was found for four different ranges of dip latitude for a northern solstice season. The effect of the transequatorial neutral winds was as evident in this plotting format as in the meridional or fountain effect format. Finally, the average vertical drift velocity V sub v, not the east-west electric field E sub ew, was found to be approximately independent of longitude, as expected from the dynamo theory.
Coley, W. R.↗
Kinetic fluid moments closure for a magnetized plasma with collisions
A novel method aimed at a kinetic moments closure for a magnetized plasma with collisions is proposed. The velocity distribution function for each species is expanded in 8 Gaussian Radial Basis Functions (GRBFs) which are essentially shifted Maxwellians at eight representative 3D-velocity points of drift. The vector of 8 fluid moments (for particle density, 3 particle fluxes, total energy density, and 3 energy fluxes) has an 8x8 analytic linear matrix relation to the vector of 8 GRBF density weighs in 3D-real space. The 8 fluid moments with sources for each species are advanced in time while the 8 GRBF weighs are determined from the 8x8 inverse matrix. The two closure moments (for the stress tensor and the energy weighted stress tensor) are linearly determined from the GRBF weighs. Most importantly the velocity moments of the nonlinear Coulomb Fokker-Planck collision operator [Rosenbluth et al, Phys. Rev 107, 1957] are evaluated from the GRBF weights. Generalization from 8 to 12, 16, 20 .., in an energy weighted moment hierarchy is straightforward. The electric field follows from a generalized vorticity (quasi-neutral charge conservation) equation. A strong drift ordering approximation can be applied to eliminate any spuriously unstable high frequency cyclotron motions. A novel weak drift ordering two-time step scheme avoids the vorticity equation by following ion cyclotron motion in time to get the electric field with ion gyroaveraging. Inclusion of low-beta magnetic perturbations is straightforward.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
Plasma irregularities associated with a morning discrete auroral arc - Radar interferometer observations and theory
A description is given of E region auroral plasma irregularities associated with an intense auroral morning arc observed over Fort Churchill by radar. The observations are compared with data from an all-sky camera (ASC) operated at Fort Churchill by the National Research Council of Canada. The particular event described was chosen because of the rapid variation in structure and motion of the arc as it traveled through the radar beam. The horizontal vector electron drift velocity and electric field along the poleward boundary of the morning discrete auroral arc was successfully measured with a radar interferometer. This instrument provided information concerning the temporal and spatial structure of the electrostatic plasma turbulence in the arc. The observations are described.
Providakes, J.↗
Three-dimensional ionospheric plasma circulation
Examination of the ion drift velocity vector measured on the DE2 spacecraft reveals the significance of ionospheric flows both perpendicular and parallel to the magnetic field at high latitudes. During periods of southward directed interplanetary magnetic field the familiar two-cell convection pattern perpendicular to the magnetic field is associated with field-aligned motion predominantly upward in the dayside auroral zone and cusp, and predominantly downward in the polar cap. Frictional heating by convection through the neutral gas and heating by energetic particle precipitation are believed to be responsible for the bulk of the upward flow with downward flows resulting from subsequent cooling of the plasma. Some of the upward flowing plasma is apparently given escape energy at altitudes above about 800 km. The average flow of ions across the entire high-latitude region at 400 km is outward and comparable to the energetic ion outflow observed at much higher altitudes by DE 1.
Heelis, R. A.↗