Magnetospheric Whistler Mode Ray Tracing with the Inclusion of Finite Electron and Ion Temperature

Abstract:

Ray tracing is an important technique for the study of whistler mode wave propagation in the Earth’s magnetosphere. In numerical ray tracing the trajectory of a wave packet is calculated at each point in space by solving the Haselgrove equations, assuming a smooth, loss-less medium with no mode coupling.

Previous work on ray tracing has assumed a cold plasma environment with negligible electron and ion temperatures. In this work we present magnetospheric whistler mode wave ray tracing results with the inclusion of finite ion and electron temperature. The inclusion of finite temperature effects makes the fourth order dispersion relation become sixth order.

We compare our results with the work done by previous researchers for cold plasma environments, using two near earth space models (NGO and GCPM).

Inclusion of finite temperature closes the otherwise open refractive index surface near the lower hybrid resonance frequency and affects the magnetospheric reflection of whistler waves. We also asses the main changes in the ray trajectory and implications for cyclotron resonance wave particle interactions including energetic particle precipitation.