APS » PROLA » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 49 » Issue 3

Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 199 - 201 (1982)

Electron Heating Within the Earth's Bow Shock
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W. C. Feldman, S. J. Bame, S. P. Gary, J. T. Gosling, D. McComas, and M. F. Thomsen
University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

G. Paschmann and N. Sckopke
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, D-8046 Garching, Federal Republic of Germany

M. M. Hoppe and C. T. Russell
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024

Received 26 March 1982

High-temporal-resolution measurements of electron velocity distributions, f(v→), have been obtained for many transits through the Earth's bow shock. Within all oblique shocks studied, the maximum of f(v→) is offset with respect to the ion rest frame parallel to B→ and directed downstream. These observations indicate that electron thermalization within the bow shock consists first of a downstream acceleration parallel to B→ by the macroscopic shock electric field, followed by beam-driven plasma instabilities.


©1982 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v49/p199
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.199
PACS: 52.35.+c

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