Abstract

Space plasmas are essentially collisionless. Kinetic energies of plasmas are transferred through wave-particle interactions. Since plasmas are dispersive media, plasma waves show various features depending on how and which plasma wave modes interact with particles. Plasma wave observations via scientific satellites have a key role in knowing physical processes in space. Plasma wave investigation systems on board satellites are dedicated to the observations of electric field and magnetic field components of plasma waves. They consist of sensors, receivers and an onboard digital processing unit. While dipole antennas are used for electric field sensors, search coil magnetometers or loop antennas are used for magnetic field sensors. Plasma wave receivers are a kind of sophisticated radio receivers. The recent plasma wave receiver is designed as a waveform receiver that can save its mass and size. In addition to waveforms, the waveform receiver provides frequency spectra which are calculated in the digital processing unit from the observed waveforms. The present paper introduces plasma wave observation by scientific satellites on the basis of the latest design of plasma wave investigation systems.

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