Abstract
A Nike Black Brant rocket (NVB-06) was launched from Churchill Rocket Range (Manitoba) on December 3, 1979 into a bright auroral display. The primary objective of the flight was to use an electron beam to probe the auroral field lines for electric fields parallel to the magnetic field. The secondary objectives were to study electron beam interactions in the ionosphere and spacecraft charging effects. In this report results relating to the secondary objectives are described. In particular, charged particle observations are presented which relate to (a) the spatial distribution of energetic (keV) charged particles surrounding the accelerator during gun firings, (b) the energy distribution of energetic electrons produced in the plasma by the electron beam, and (c) the dependence of these characteristics on the beam energy, current, and injection angle. It is shown that certain similarities exist between these observations and those made in laboratory simulations of the experiment where a specific beam-plasma instability was stimulated.
Published Version
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