Neutral gas plasma interactions in space plasma

sounding rocket experiment, CRIT-II, involving the injection of shaped-charge barium in ionospheric plasma was conducted on May 7, 1989, to investigate Alfven's critical ionization velocity (CIV) hypothesis in space. The CRIT-II main payload was instrumented to make in situ measurements within the neutral barium beam. Among the detectors, UNH provided three energetic particle detectors and two photometers. The data from these detectors are presented. The typical features of the CIV effect were observed including plasma density enhancement, energy and momentum loss of a fast ion beam, excitation of plasma waves, and electron heating. It was found by optical observations that about 4% of the neutral barium was ionized. We believe that about one half of these barium ions were created by electron impact ionization--a CIV mechanism. The cross section for collisions between the barium atoms and the ionospheric oxygen ions was also calculated, assuming that the other half of ionizing barium ions were mainly generated by charge exchange, and found to be in the range from 1...