NON-MAXWELLIAN VELOCITY DISTRIBUTION: A CHARACTERISTIC OF SPACE PLASMA

Although most of the matter in the Universe is in the state of ionized gas, the solar system remains to be the only natural laboratory for spacecraft to conduct the in-situ measurement of cosmic plasma. As revealed by many satellite observations, the velocity distribution of charged particles in the interplanetary space and Earth's space plasma environment usually exhibits non-Gaussian form. In this presentation the origin and consequence of non-Maxwellian distribution are addressed and the inter-comparison between theory and observation is illustrated.

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