plasma heating due to instabilities is bound to occur, we take an averaging approach and assume that the ambient plasma in the vicinity of the flux tube will have a temperature of ~ 5 eV, which is to assume that the major part of the beam energy will be deposited in the ionosphere-plasmasphere system. Since the COTV spirals outwards toward GEO, as in Figure 2, the relatively localized "footprint" of the instantaneous field line becomes a band of heated ionospheric-plasmaspheric flux shells. The exact level of heating and the exact extent of heated areas need to be evaluated for a complete assessment, but these can only be arrived at by doing research far in advance of the present frontier in this field. For the present effort, it is perhaps sufficient to seize upon the similarity in magnitude between beam energy dissipation and geomagnetic storm energy dissipation in the ionosphere; and note that the heating input is not unlike that in a flux tube containing the auroral arc. If so, then we would expect the plasma temperature to be a few electron volts (103-104 °K). This estimate is also consistent with the averaging approach taken above. What is the primary consequence of ionospheric-plasmaspheric heating to a few electron volts? We argue that this will lead to a modification of plasmaspheric composition. This argument is based on a steady state model of the density and composition distribution of the plasmasphere; thus, it needs qualification and refinement based on further applied research. However, since the results are physically sound, we feel that the first order estimates are sufficiently significant for present purposes. As a first approximation it is assumed that the ionized argon can be treated as a constituent of the steady-state plasmasphere. An earlier analytical model of the equilibrium plasmasphere derived by Chiu et al. (1979b) is used to predict the changes that will occur due to the presence of argon ions 44
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==