EGU23-8212
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8212
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Generation and Expansion of the Impact Plasma Cloud after Dust Impacts on Solar Orbiter

Jakub Vaverka1, Jiří Pavlů1, Jana Šafránková1, Zdeněk Němeček1, Samia Ijaz1, Samuel Kočiščák2, David Píša3, Jan Souček3, Arnaud Zaslavsky4, Christopher J. Owen5, and Daniel Verscharen5
Jakub Vaverka et al.
  • 1Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Surface and Plasma Science, Prague, Czechia (jakub.vaverka@mff.cuni.cz)
  • 2Institute of Physics and Technology, UiT, Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway
  • 3Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 4LESIA – Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, France
  • 5University College London, United Kingdom

Dust grain impacting the spacecraft body can be either partly or totally evaporated and ionized as well as a small part of spacecraft material. A cloud of charged particles (impact cloud) generated by such impact can consequently influence the spacecraft potential and/or measurements of on-board scientific instruments. Electric field antennas are sensitive to these disturbances and typically register signals generated by dust impacts as short transient pulses. This method is commonly used for the detection of dust grains even without dedicated dust detectors. Expanding impact clouds can also influence measurements of other scientific instruments such as magnetometers and particle detectors.

The presented study is focused on the understanding of the generation and consequent expansion of impact cloud after dust impacts on Solar Orbiter. The Time Domain Sampler (TDS), a subsystem of the Radio and Plasma Wave (RPW) instrument, is used for the detection of individual dust impacts. Three channels of short electric field waveforms (typically 62.5 ms) provide us with information about the influence of expanding particles on three electric antennas. We have analyzed more than 2000 waveform snapshots with dust impacts in various operation modes (monopole and dipole antenna configurations) of RPW/TDS. Additional information about particles generated by dust impact is provided by the Electron Analyser System (EAS), one of the Solar Wind Analyser (SWA) suite instrument.

How to cite: Vaverka, J., Pavlů, J., Šafránková, J., Němeček, Z., Ijaz, S., Kočiščák, S., Píša, D., Souček, J., Zaslavsky, A., Owen, C. J., and Verscharen, D.: Generation and Expansion of the Impact Plasma Cloud after Dust Impacts on Solar Orbiter, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-8212, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8212, 2023.