VG2 JUP PLS DERIVED ION IN/OUTBNDMAGSHTH L-MODE 96SEC V1.0

Inbound Voyager 2 passed near noon local time, so it sampled regions of the magnetosheath where flow is generally subsonic. Distribution functions observed were well represented by two convected isotropic proton Maxwellians, so this type of distribution was used to derive the proton velocity, density and temperature.

Physically the two populations represent the thermal plasma accelerated at the shock (the colder component) and ions reflected once at the shock before entering the magnetosheath (the hotter component). The PLS experiment could not resolve alpha particles in this region so no alpha parameters are provided; the neglect of alpha made cause an overestimate of the hot proton component of the plasma. One sigma errors are provided for the fit parameters.