Magnetic Signatures associated with Dust Impacts on Parker Solar Probe

As the closest humanmade object to the sun, the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) is uniquely positioned to study inner heliospheric dust. The PSP/FIELDS instrument suite detects dust via short voltage pulses, resulting from the influence of plasma clouds generated by hypervelocity dust impacts on the spacecraft. Similar dust detection methods have been used on other missions, including Voyager 1 and 2, STEREO, Wind, and Cassini. In addition to the voltage signatures, about 2% of dust impacts captured by Time Domain Survey (TDS) burst data on PSP/FIELDS are shown to have magnetic signatures measured by the Search Coil Magnetometer (SCM). While magnetic signatures have previously been detected in laboratory hypervelocity impact experiments, they have not been previously reported in space. The signatures are brief (lasting less than 0.1ms), and most have a dominant frequency component around 120kHz. They are also associated with large signals in the V5 antenna, located near the SCM on the rear boom of the spacecraft. In this work, we present statistics and case studies of dust impacts with magnetic signatures on PSP. We will discuss potential physical mechanisms for the magnetic signatures, as well as early modeling efforts and implications for future hypervelocity impact studies.