Measurements And Particle In Cell vs. Fluid Simulations Of A New Time Domain Impedance Probe For Ionospheric Plasma Characterization

A plasma impedance probe is used to obtain plasma parameters in the ionosphere by measuring the magnitude, shape and location of resonances in the frequency spectrum when a probe structure is driven with RF excitation. The measured magnitude and phase response with respect to frequency can be analyzed via analytical and simulational means. We have designed and developed a new Time Domain Impedance Probe capable of making measurements of absolute electron density and electron neutral collision frequency at temporal and spatial resolutions not previously attained. A single measurement can be made in a time as short as 50 microseconds, which yields a spatial resolution of 0.35 meters for a satellite orbital velocity of 7 km/s. The method essentially consists of applying a small amplitude time limited voltage signal into a probe and measuring the resulting current response. The frequency bandwidth of the voltage signal is selected in order that the electron plasma resonances are observable. A prototype of the instrument will be flown in October 2015 on a NASA Undergraduate Student Instrument Progam (USIP) sounding rocket launched out of Wallops Flight Facility. To analyze the measurements, we use a Particle In Cell (PIC) kinetic simulation to calculate the impedance of a dipole antenna immersed in a plasma. The electromagnetic solver utilizes the Finite Difference Time Domain method, while the particle to grid and grid to particle interpolation schemes are standard. The plasma sheath formation electron flux into the dipole surface is not included. The bulk velocity of the plasma around the dipole is assumed to be zero. For completeness, the hot plasma and nonlinear effects of probe plasma interaction are explored, including the appearance of cyclotron harmonics. In this work the electron neutral collisions are simulated via a Poisson process approximation. Our results are compared to sounding rocket data from the NASA Tropical Storms mission in 2007, as well as the NASA USIP launch. In the first case the simulation results are compared to the impedance magnitude and phase obtained through a frequency sweeping technique. In the second case the simulation results are compared to impedance magnitude and phase obtained through the new time domain technique.