On the Effect of the Interplanetary Medium on Nanodust Observations by the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory

TL;DR

This paper analyzes five years of STEREO/WAVES data to characterize nanodust in interplanetary space, revealing its flux, speed, and interaction with the solar wind, and comparing results with existing models.

Contribution

It provides an improved analysis method for nanodust detection and offers new statistical insights into nanodust flux and characteristics over time.

Findings

Nanodust flux varies temporally in interplanetary space.

Detected nanodust signals agree with previous measurements and models.

Nanodust can produce strong signals despite low mass due to high speed.

Abstract

New measurements using radio and plasma-wave instruments in interplanetary space have shown that nanometer-scale dust, or nanodust, is a significant contributor to the total mass in interplanetary space. Better measurements of nanodust will allow us to determine where it comes from and the extent to which it interacts with the solar wind. When one of these nanodust grains impacts a spacecraft, it creates an expanding plasma cloud, which perturbs the photoelectron currents. This leads to a voltage pulse between the spacecraft body and the antenna. Nanodust has a high charge/mass ratio, and therefore can be accelerated by the interplanetary magnetic field to speeds up to the speed of the solar wind: significantly faster than the Keplerian orbital speeds of heavier dust. The amplitude of the signal induced by a dust grain grows much more strongly with speed than with mass of the dust particle. As a result, nanodust can produce a strong signal, despite their low mass. The WAVES instruments on the twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory spacecraft have observed interplanetary nanodust particles since shortly after their launch in 2006. After describing a new and improved analysis of the last five years of STEREO/WAVES Low Frequency Receiver data, a statistical survey of the nanodust characteristics, namely the rise time of the pulse voltage and the flux of nanodust, is presented. Agreement with previous measurements and interplanetary dust models is shown. The temporal variations of the nanodust flux are also discussed.