EGU2020-3095
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3095
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Components of Impact Plasma: Velocity and Temperature

Samuel Kočiščák1, Åshild Fredriksen2, Michael DeLuca3, Jiří Pavlů1, and Zoltan Sternovsky3
Samuel Kočiščák et al.
  • 1Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Surface and Plasma Science, Prague, Czechia (s.kociscak@gmail.com)
  • 2UiT The Arctic University of Norway Location, Tromsø, Norway
  • 3Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Impact ionization is a process of plasma generation upon hypervelocity impact of a small body (e.g., interplanetary dust grain) onto a solid surface.  Such process may play an important role in astrochemistry. Understanding the plasma generation, we can clarify the interpretation of proclaimed dust impact detections onto antenna-equipped space experiments, which have become widely popular in the recent years.

We present the data gained in charge generation and collection experiments conducted at the University of Colorado IMPACT hypervelocity dust accelerator facility. The impacts are of sub-micrometer cosmic dust simulants onto a metal target in the range of velocities between 1 and 50 km/s. We discuss measured charge collection on a microsecond scale as well as aggregated results of electron and ion drift velocities and temperatures and specifically their dependence on the velocity of the impactor.

How to cite: Kočiščák, S., Fredriksen, Å., DeLuca, M., Pavlů, J., and Sternovsky, Z.: Components of Impact Plasma: Velocity and Temperature, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-3095, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3095, 2020

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