Collaborative Research: Meteor Plasmas - Dynamics and Radiowave Scattering

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Billions of particles impact the Earth's upper atmosphere every day with sufficient energy to create high-density plasma trails in the E-region ionosphere. For the last 50 years, optics and radars have characterized these meteor plasmas in order to infer properties of the meteoroids (speed, direction of origin, size) and the atmosphere (winds and, recently, temperatures). The research will use theoretical and numerical modeling to investigate the deposition of meteoric material in the upper atmosphere and of how this material is transported and transformed. This involves development of basic plasma physics theory and computer simulations for highly collisional plasmas in magnetic fields. One of the primary objectives of the research is to simulate meteor evolution from ablation to suffusion into the atmosphere. To achieve this task, a combination of models and simulations spanning physical scales from sub-millimeters to tens of meters and dynamic time-scales from microseconds to seconds will be developed. The 3-D Particle-in-Cell (PIC) code as well as hybrid simulator techniques will be adopted.The research is interdisciplinary in nature, addressing basic plasma physics science questions that also have great practical relevance to a broad range of applications in aeronomy, astrophysics, and space science engineering. In addition, the project has a strong educational component. It would provide support for both undergraduate and graduate students at Boston University.