Effect of neutral winds on the creation of non-specular meteor trail echoes

Non-specular meteor trail echoes are radar reflections from plasma instabilities that are caused by field-aligned irregularities. Meteor simulations are examined to show that these plasma instabilities, and thus the associated meteor trail echo, strongly depend on the meteoroid properties and the characteristics of the atmosphere in which the meteoroid is embedded. The effects of neutral winds, as a function of altitude, are analyzed to understand how their amplitude variability impacts the temporal–space signatures of non-specular meteor trail echoes present in very high-frequency (VHF) radar observations. It is found that amplitudes of the total horizontal neutral wind smaller than 0.6 m s−1 do not provide the right physical conditions to enable the genesis of non-specular meteor echoes. It is also found that a 0.0316 µg meteoroid traveling at 35 km s−1 can be seen as a meteor trail echo if the amplitudes of horizontal neutral winds are stronger than 15 m s−1. In contrast, a 0.316 µg meteoroid, traveling at the same speed, requires horizontal winds stronger than 1 m s−1 to be visible as a meteor trail echo. The neutral velocity threshold illustrates how simulations show that no trail echo is created below a critical wind value. This critical wind value is not mapped directly to radar observations, but it is used to shed light on the physics of meteor trails and improve their modeling. The meteor simulations also indicate that time delays on the order of hundreds of milliseconds or longer, between head echoes and non-specular echoes, which are present in VHF backscatter radar maps, can be a consequence of very dense plasma trails being affected by weak horizontal neutral winds that are smaller than 1 m s−1.

Plasma instabilities driven by pickup ions of ring-beam velocity distributions in the outer heliosheath

<p><span>The stability of the pickup ions in the outer heliosheath has been studied by many researchers because of its relevance to the energetic neutral atom (ENA) ribbon observed by the Interstellar Boundary EXplorer. However, previous studies are primarily limited to pickup ions of near </span><span>90° </span><span>pickup angles, the angle between the pickup ion injection velocity and the background, local interstellar magnetic field. Investigations on pickup ions of smaller pickup angles are still lacking. In this paper, linear kinetic dispersion analysis and hybrid simulations are carried out to examine the plasma instabilities driven by pickup ions of ring-beam velocity distributions at various pickup angles between zero and </span><span>90°</span><span>. </span><span>Parallel propagating waves are studied in the parameter regime where the parallel thermal spread of the pickup ions falls into the Alfvén cyclotron stability gap. </span><span>The linear analysis results and hybrid simulations both show that the fastest growing modes are the right-hand helicity waves propagating in the direction of the background magnetic field, and the maximum growth rate occurs at the pickup angle of </span><span>82°</span><span>. The simulation results further reveal that the saturation level of the fluctuating magnetic fields for pickup angles below </span><span>45° </span><span>is higher than that for pickup angles above </span><span>45°</span><span>. So, the scattering of pickup ions at near zero pickup angles is likely more pronounced than that at near </span><span>90° </span><span>pickup angles</span> .</p>

OPTIMIZATION OF THE MAGNETIC SYSTEM OF A VACUUM-ARC PLASMA SOURCE WITH A STRAIGHT LINE FILTER

The vacuum-arc plasma source with a rectilinear filter has been optimized for deposition of coatings on large size products. The calculations of the magnetic configuration options of the system were performed by using the FEMM program. New design of the output coil of the filter allows increase by 1.3 times the efficiency of plasma transportation to the substrate with a diameter of 300 mm. Plasma instabilities are proposed for the explanation the features of the motion of vacuum-arc plasma through the regions of an inhomogeneous magnetic field in a rectilinear macroparticles filter with a "magnetic island".