Dense ion clouds of 0.1 - 2 keV ions inside the CPS-region observed by Astrid-2

Abstract

Data from the Astrid-2 satellite taken between April and July 1999 show several examples of dense ion clouds in the 0.1-2 keV energy range inside the inner magnetosphere, both in the northern and southern hemispheres. These inner magnetospheric ion clouds are found predominantly in the early morning sector, suggesting that they could have originated from substorm-related ion injections on the night side. However, their location and density show no correlation with Kp, and their energy-latitude dispersion is not easily reproduced by a simple particle drift model. There-fore, these ion clouds are not necessarily caused by substorm-related ion injections. Alternative explanations for the ion clouds are the direct solar wind injections and up-welling ions from the other hemisphere. These explanations do not, however, account for all of the observations.