Lazuchenkov D. Development of probe methods for determination of parameters of the neutral and charged components of a rarefied laboratory and ionospheric plasma flows

The object of research is the nonequilibrium rarefied plasma in the pressure range from 0.0001 to 1000 Pa. The purpose of the study is to develop probe methods to determine the set of local values of the kinetic parameters of the neutral and charged components of the rarefied plasma flows in the pressure range from 0.0001 to 1000 Pa. The research methods are theoretical and numerical methods for studying the interaction of rarefied plasma flows with electrical probes, mathematical processing of the experimental results on the diagnostics of rarefied plasma by electrical probes. The development of the probe method consists of determining the parameters of neutral plasma particles. For this, the temperature characteristic of the calorimetric probe (pressure from 0.1 to 1000 Pa) or the signals of a two-channel pressure probe (0.0001-0.1 Pa) are recorded. The relation of the probe output signals with the kinetic parameters of the medium has been obtained, mathematical modeling of probe measurements in space experiment has been carried out, algorithms for processing and analyzing the probe equipment signals have been developed. The use of the temperature of neutral particles of the ionosphere for monitoring seismic activity has been substantiated. The developed method was tested in space experiment on the Sich-2 satellite. Scientific novelty: the problem of heat exchange of flat and cylindrical calorimetric probes in a transient plasma flow is solved; the problem of diagnosing of highly rarefied supersonic plasma flows using the two-channel pressure probe and the cylindrical electric probe is solved; it is shown that the use of calorimetric probes, the pressure probe and the cylindrical electric probe allows to complete the task of plasma diagnostics; method for diagnosing of supersonic ionospheric plasma flows has been applied to the space experiment for identification of the main natural sources of ionospheric plasma disturbances, including sources of seismic activity. Application: processing of the results of experiments in laboratory and space plasma.