Particle motion in the equatorial plane

Abstract

A theoretical formulation has been made to describe the motion of bound particles in the equatorial plane of a concentric gravitational and dipole magnetic field. Exact expressions are obtained for the angular drift, angular drift velocity, and period of the particle about the dipole axis in terms of the normal complete elliptic integrals. More tractable results are obtained by a first-order approximation to the trajectory of the particle. This analysis is applicable to the motion of charged satellites or charged particles in the exosphere. The approximate results of the paper can be extended by using higher-order approximations.