Determining Magnetic Field Directions and Omni-directional Fluxes of Particles from STPSat-6 ZPS Plasma Measurements

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to determine local magnetic field directions and omni-directional particle fluxes from STPSat-6 ZPS plasma measurements, validated against NOAA GOES data, with implications for data processing and instrument design.

Contribution

Developed a novel method to derive magnetic field directions and omni-directional fluxes from ZPS plasma measurements, enhancing data analysis capabilities for space plasma studies.

Findings

Method achieves high accuracy in magnetic field direction determination.

Omni-directional fluxes can be estimated with quantifiable errors.

Method is applicable for future ZPS data processing and instrument design.

Abstract

This report summarizes our recent data derivation efforts on STPSat-6 ZPS plasma measurements, presenting final outcomes. We begin by outlining the methodology developed to determine local magnetic field directions from measured directional intensities of ~20 keV ions,leveraging symmetry in particles' pitch-angle distributions, and the determined field directions over a storm period are shown with errors analyzed through comparison with NOAA GOES measurements. Next, we further assess the validity of the method and quantify its overall high performance while acknowledging certain caveats. Finally, given local magnetic field directions and ZPS data, we explain how omni-directional fluxes of particles can be derived from ZPS measurements with limited directional coverage, and estimate the related errors under several theoretical scenarios. The methods developed in this study can be applied for processing and augmenting ZPS data for the next, and the insights gained here can also inform instrument design in the future.