Plasma waves associated with the AMPTE artificial comet

Abstract

Numerous plasma wave effects were detected by the AMPTE/IRM spacecraft during the artificial comet experiment on December 27, 1984. As the barium ion cloud produced by the explosion expanded over the spacecraft, emissions at the electron plasma frequency and ion plasma frequency provided a determination of the local electron density. The electron density in the diamagnetic cavity produced by the ion cloud reached a peak ≳5×105 cm−3, then decayed smoothly as the cloud expanded, varying approximately as t−2. As the cloud began to move due to interactions with the solar wind, a region of compressed plasma was encountered on the upstream side of the diamagnetic cavity. The peak electron density in the compression region was about 1.5×104 cm−3. Later, a very intense (140 mVolt/m) broadband burst of electrostatic noise was encountered on the sunward side of the compression region. This noise has characteristics very similar to noise observed in the earth's bow shock, and is believed to be a shock‐like interaction produced by an ion beam‐plasma instability between the nearly stationary barium ions and the streaming solar wind protons.