Conceptual Design of the Tail Research EXperiment in Space Plasma Environment Research Facility (SPERF-TREX)

Abstract

The Space Plasma Environment Research Facility (SPERF) for ground simulation of space plasma environment is a key component of Space Environment Simulation Research Infrastructure (SESRI), a major national science and technology infrastructure for fundamental researches. It is designed to investigate outstanding issues in space plasma environment, such as energetic particles acceleration, transport, and interaction with electromagnetic waves, as well as magnetic reconnection processes, in the magnetospheric plasmas, etc. Tail-Research EXperiment (TREX) is part of the SPERF for laboratory studies of space physics relevant to magnetic reconnection, dipolarization and hydromagnetic waves excitation in the magnetotail. SPERF-TREX is designed to carry out three types of experiments: the tail plasmoid for magnetic reconnection, dipolarization front formation, and magnetohydrodynamic waves excited by high speed plasma jet. In this paper, the scientific goals and three scenarios of SPERF-TREX for typical processes in space plasmas are presented, and experimental plans for SPERF-TREX are also reviewed, together with plasma sources applied to generate the plasma with desired parameters and various magnetic configurations.