Magnetospheric Dynamics by Proton Auroral Imaging

研究人员将开发和部署用于探测质子极光的全天成像仪。成像仪将提供波长分辨率，以确定由沉淀质子的电荷交换产生的氢极光发射的多普勒轮廓。波长分辨率将有助于将氢排放(质子极光)与其他极光排放分开，相比之下，其他极光排放可能非常强烈，在过去的氢极光测量中一直很麻烦。对多普勒频移的观测也将使我们能够反转沉淀质子的视线速度分布。该仪器的设计能够有效地消除背景辐射，而不会损失从全天相机视野中获得的空间信息。该仪器将在项目的第一年在实验室中建造和测试。然后它将被部署在高纬度极光站，如阿拉斯加的扑克平地。质子极光的分布将被用来推断磁层封闭场线区域的动力学及其对磁层亚暴和太阳风变化的反应。

The investigators will develop and deploy an all-sky imager for detecting proton aurora. The imager will provide wavelength resolution to determine the Doppler profile of the hydrogen auroral emissions produced by charge exchange of precipitating protons. The wavelength resolution will aid in separating the hydrogen emissions (proton aurora) from other auroral emissions, which can be very intense in comparison and have been troublesome in past hydrogen aurora measurements. The observation of the Doppler shift will also allow the inversion of the line of sight velocity distribution of the precipitating protons. The design of the instrument enables effective elimination of background emissions without losing the spatial information available from an all-sky camera field-of-view. The instrument will be constructed and tested in the laboratory in the first year of the project. Then it will be fielded at a high latitude auroral station, such as Poker Flat, Alaska. The distribution of proton aurora will be used to infer the dynamics of the closed field line region of the magnetosphere and its response to magnetospheric substorms and changes in the solar wind.