The Compton‐Getting Effect for low energy particles

Abstract

The traditional first‐order Compton‐Getting effect, which relates particle distributions as observed in two frames of reference moving with constant relative velocity, is inadequate for the description of low energy particles (less than a few hundred keV/nucleon) in the solar system. An exact procedure is given for recovering both isotropic and anisotropic distributions in the solar wind frame from observations made in a spacecraft frame. The method is illustrated by analyzing a particle event observed by the Univ. of Maryland experiment on IMP‐7 on 31 October 1972. Copyright 1974 by the American Geophysical Union.