Abstract
Characteristics of plasmaspheric ion thermal structure are presented from a statistical survey of low-energy of (< 50 eV) ion measurements made by the Retarding Ion Mass Spectrometer (RIMS) on the DE-1 satellite. Morning and evening results are compared to illustrate diurnal trends. Typical day side temperatures range from about 4000 K in the inner plasmasphere to over 10000 K in the outer plasmasphere, while corresponding evening side temperatures range from near 2000 K to over 10000 K. Magnetic activity is found to affect the morning and evening sides somewhat differently. Temperatures are found to remain constant or increase with altitude along magnetic field lines, depending on local time and L shell. Thermal equilibrium between H+ and He+ prevails to a high degree throughout the plasmasphere. Ion temperatures from the Plasma Composition Experiment (PCE) on ISEE-1 are generally consistent with those from DE-1/RIMS, but are lower and tend to indicate more large scale structure on the day side.
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