Imaging ion outflow in the high-latitude magnetosphere using low-energy neutral atoms
Abstract
The measurement of neutral atom fluxes generated by charge exchange with the Earth's geocorona has recently been shown to provide the capability to image the magnetosphere. Here we investigate neutral oxygen fluxes, produced by charge exchange from the cusp/cleft ion fountain population. Using an empirical cusp/cleft ion fountain model, an empirical variation of the geocoronal neutral hydrogen density with distance, and typical values for charge exchange cross-sections, line-of-sight integrations are performed to calculate the neutral oxygen flux at arbitrary locations in space. The resulting images are evaluated for a set of orbital positions of the proposed HI-LITE small explorer spacecraft. It is shown that the resulting neutral oxygen fluxes are high enough for imaging with a low energy neutral atom imaging instrument (ILENA) on board the spacecraft.
- Publication:
-
Instrumentation for Magnetospheric Imagery II
- Pub Date:
- July 1993
- DOI:
- 10.1117/12.147646
- Bibcode:
- 1993SPIE.2008...83H