Non-linear analysis of PESA-Lo electrostatic analyzer data and solar wind temperature anisotropies

Abstract:

In this study, non-linear fitting techniques are applied to ion measurements from the Wind spacecraft's PESA-Lo electrostatic analyzer. Previous studies have relied primarily on moments-analyses, which, although satisfactory for simple distributions and density calculations, often return unreasonable values for higher order moments (e.g., temperature) and fail to account for non-thermal effects (e.g., temperature anisotropy and beams) and multiple ion-species. A Levenberg-Marquadt non-linear algorithm is applied to the PESA-Lo data in order to calculate the characteristic parameters of the proton, alpha-particle, and beam distributions. This analysis is augmented with calibration data from the WIND Faraday cups and magnetic-field data from WIND/MFI. Preliminary results from this non-linear analysis indicate that it indeed provides higher-quality ion parameters than the existing moments-analysis. When this analysis is complete, the set of bulk-parameter values will be suitable for studies of microinstabilities in the solar wind and of possible correlation between magnetic field fluctuations and non-thermal properties of the ion distributions. Applications of thermodynamic principles, such as the Boltzmann H-theorem, will allow for further characterization of the non-thermal properties of the solar wind.