Theory by Indian Scientists on mystery behind complex phenomena in Plasma
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Science & Technology
- Published
24th May, 2021
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Context
Indian Scientists have recently developed a theory which helps to understand the complicated nature of Sun-Earth interaction that happening in the magnetosphere.
About the theory
- Researchers are working towards a detailed study of the ion-hole structures observed in various space and astrophysical environments.
- In 2017, NASA's latest expedition to unlock Sun-Earth interaction's complicated nature, the MMS spacecraft, observed negative monopolar potential.
- Monopolar potential is an electric field potentials whichcan be visualized in the form of single-humped pulse-type structures.
- The scientific community recognized its importance, and publications were presented.
- None of the available theories could explain the characteristics of these structures due to the exotic background conditions.
- A group consisting of Mr. Harikrishnan, Prof. Amar Kakad, and Prof. Bharati Kakad from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism(IIG) developed a theory.
Key points of the theory
- This new theory will help to unlock the mysteries of the ion-hole structures.
- Ion-hole structure is a localized plasma region where the ion density is lower than the surrounding plasma.
- The proposed theory tries to solve the conflict between the observations from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission, a NASA robotic space mission to study the Earth's magnetosphereand theoretical predictions.
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Magnetosphere is an area of space around Earth that is controlled by the Earth’s magnetic field.
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- They have completely ruled out the necessity of the upper limit in the temperature ratio between ions and electrons for the generation of a special kind of wave called Bernstein Green Kruskal (BGK) waves.
- The new theory sheds light on the generation of these structures leading to the unraveling of nature's greatest mystery that causes phenomena –the plasma transport and heating of plasma - the fourth state of matter.
- They revealed that the electrons that are not part of ion hole dynamics also play a vital role.
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Fig: The structure of ion BGK waves is shown. The lower figure shows a two-dimensional plot of the trapped ion density, and the upper plot shows the three-dimensional variation of the trapped ion density. This clarifies that in phase space, they appear to have holes at the center.
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Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG)
- It is an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.
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It was given a full-scale mandate to pursue geomagnetic and allied field research in 1971.
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The first magnetic observations in India were started at Madras in 1822, followed by the recordings at Simla (1841), Trivandrum (1841) and Colaba (1841). Among these, only Colaba observatory continued uninterrupted since 1841.
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