Exercises

Q-1 Calculate the Larmor radius and gyro-frequencies for the following particles

(a) A 10 keV electron moving with a pitch angle of 45◦with respect to the Earth’s
magnetic field of 30,000nT [nano Teslas ].

(b) A solar wind proton moving at 400 km/s perpendicular to a field of 5nT.

(c) A 1 keV He+ ion in the solar atmosphere near a sunspot where B = 5 × 10 −2 T
assume that (vll = 0).

Q-2 The solar wind at 1AU is a fully ionized proton-electron plasma with density ∼
5 particles/cm3 and an electron energy∼3eV. Calculate the electron temperature
in Kelvin, the Debye length λD and Debye number ND.

Q-3 for a steady state ,both ion and electron follow Boltzmann relation
n j=n 0 exp ⁡(−q j ∅ /K T j ) show that the shielding distance is given by

ne2 1 1
λ−2
D = ( + )
∈0 KT e KT i