Transport of ions injected by AMPTE magnetotail releases

Abstract

The Ba and Li ions that were released in the magnetotail in the spring of 1985 by the AMPTE IRM satellite were not observed subsequently in the inner magnetosphere with the AMPTE CCE satellite. In an effort to understand these results, Cladis and Francis [1988] modeled the expansion and ionization of the released atoms and computed several hundred guiding‐center trajectories of the ions to sample the motion of each ion cloud. Here, the transport calculations were improved principally by computing the full gyration motion of the ions in a more realistic model of the geomagnetic tail. The results indicate that the Ba+ ions were convected inward along a narrow corridor, which was at least 2 RE away from the satellite in the case of the first Ba release and at least 3 RE away in the case of the second Ba release. Even if the ions from the second Ba release had reached the satellite, their energies would have been too low to be detected by the spectrometers that were operating at that time. The Li+ ions from both releases drifted inward over broad regions which overlapped the satellite in space and time. However, their fluxes at the satellite were somewhat too low to be detected.