MOMENTUM AND ENERGY-TRANSFER IN AN IONOSPHERIC CRITICAL IONIZATION VELOCITY EXPERIMENT

We present new data from the subpayload of the GRIT II ionospheric act ive injection experiment. The analysis made possible by these data pro vides a good understanding of the momentum transfer between the inject ed ions and the ambient ionosphere. It resolves the conflict between t he two competing models for the energy transfer from the newly created ions to hot electrons, while also giving a natural coupling between t he energy and momentum transfer processes.