Development of an ionospheric thermal plasma moment analyzer based on a superconducting 2-D dipole or racetrack electromagnet

Summary form only given. One of the critical unsolved instrumentation problems in experimental ionospheric physics is the measurement of the transport properties of the thermal component of low temperature (T<1 eV) plasma. Present instruments can only measure the density, the temperature and the bulk flow velocity of thermal plasma. There are no in situ instruments that are capable of measuring more detailed parameters of a low temperature thermal plasma such as pitch angle distribution, electric current density, pressure anisotropy or heat flow. Measurements of these parameters are vitally needed to stimulate further progress in modelling the thermodynamics of the ionosphere. We have begun designing an instrument that will be capable of making these measurements. This instrument exploits the unique properties of particle motion in a 2-D or line dipole magnetic field. Particles that enter a region of large 2-D field and applied orthogonal electric field will retain their initial pitch angles and will arrive at an interior detection surface at a location that is a unique function of initial pitch angle, energy, and charge sign. In addition, the particles gain two orders of magnitude in energy, thus rendering detection easier. This paper describes a plasma analyzer based on this concept.