The primary goal of the Polar Plasma Wave Investigation (PWI) is to provide comprehensive measurements of plasma wave phenomena in the high latitude auroral zones, in the dayside magnetic cusp regions, and in the plasmasphere and plasmasheet. Coordinated measurements will be made with the plasma, energetic particle, imaging, and magnetic field measurements to study local processes with an emphasis on wave-particle interactions. The Polar Plasma Wave Investigation employs seven distinct sensors for detecting the electric and magnetic fields of plasma waves. These sensors consist of: a pair of orthogonal two-sphere electric antennas in the spin plane of the spacecraft with sphere-to-sphere separations of 100 meters and 130 meters respectively, shared with the Electric Field Instrument (EFI); a short two-sphere electric antenna aligned along the spacecraft spin axis with a sphere-to-sphere separation of 14 meters, also shared with EFI; a triaxial magnetic search coil mounted on the end of a rigid stacer boom, shared with EFI; and a magnetic loop antenna mounted on the same boom and oriented parallel to the 100-meter electric antenna in the spin plane. The spheres on the electric antennas are 9 cm in diameter and each contains a high-impedance preamplifier that provides signals to the boom deployment mechanisms. Amplifiers in the deployment mechanisms buffer signals to EFI and PWI independently. Each of the three magnetic search coils consists of two bobbins mounted on high permeability micro-metal cores 40cm long. Each bobbin is wound with 10,000 turns of #40 wire. The coil outputs are amplified by a preamplifier in the search coil housing to provide a low-impedance signal to the main electronics box. The search coil sensitivity constant is 70 micro V/nT-Hz and the resonance frequency is approximately 10 kHz. The loop antenna is similar to the magnetic loop antenna on Dynamics Explorer A and is designed to detect magnetic fields over a frequency range from 25 Hz to 800 kHz. The loop sensitivity constant is 385 micro V/nT-Hz and the resonance frequency is 45 kHz. For more information, see: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/istp/ and http://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/polar/polar_inst.shtml Group: Instrument_Details Entry_ID: PWI-P Group: Instrument_Identification Instrument_Category: Solar/Space Observing Instruments Instrument_Class: Magnetic Field/Electric Field Instruments Short_Name: PWI-P Long_Name: Plasma Waves Investigation (Polar) End_Group Group: Associated_Platforms Short_Name: POLAR End_Group Online_Resource: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/istp/polar/home.html Online_Resource: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/istp/polar/instrument.html Sample_Image: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plasma-wave/istp/polar/images/PolarComponents.jpg Group: Instrument_Logistics Instrument_Start_Date: 1996-02-24 Instrument_Owner: University of Iowa End_Group End_Group
PWI-P
Magnetic Field/Electric Field Instruments