High Latitude Ionospheric Temperature Characterization Through Simulation-Assisted Calibration of the Mini Plasma Imager
Date
2022-10-28
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Abstract
The high latitude region of Earth's atmosphere is a large and tremendously complex dynamical environment that acts as an intermediary between the plasma of interplanetary space and the terrestrial environment. The difficulties in measurement, analysis, and characterization of this region (particularly at altitudes below 800 km) are immense. Technological and geophysical challenges to probe the region have left ion temperature values systematically under-reported despite their fundamental importance to the description of plasma behaviour and atmospheric structure. The Mini Plasma Imager (MPI) is a next generation plasma diagnostic instrument developed to quench this measurement gap. The first iteration of the MPI flew onboard the VISualizing Ions Via Neutral Atom Sensing - 2 (VISIONS-2) sounding rocket mission that launched into the high latitude ionosphere from Svalbard on December 7th, 2018. This thesis investigates the observations recorded by the MPI and presents findings on its ability to accurately record ion temperatures. We process VISIONS-2 MPI flight data to remove systematic noise and reconstruct two-dimensional ion distributions of the cleaned data. We analyze these distributions and two measurements techniques are explored, allowing for the use of Monte-Carlo simulation-assisted instrument calibration to recover ion temperatures from flight data. The first technique fails to provide a robust ion temperature estimate for the MPIs. Using the second technique we demonstrate MPI sensitivity to ionospheric ion temperatures at altitudes between 100 km and 400 km. We observe real ion temperature enhancements with significant heating occurring between 360 km and 370 km. Empirical modelling suggests that the MPI may be systematically over-estimating ion temperature, however, the extent of this over-estimation is uncertain due to instrumental effects. Future research to mitigate both instrumental effects and analysis shortfalls are outlined. We conclude that if a more robust data analysis pipeline is developed, the MPI appears to be capable of providing reliable temperature data and establishing itself as a plasma instrument of significant scientific utility for ongoing and future ionospheric research.
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Keywords
Space Physics, Ionosphere, Plasma Physics, VISIONS-2
Citation
Zuber, S. (2022). High latitude ionospheric temperature characterization through simulation-assisted calibration of the Mini Plasma Imager (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.