HR: 15:25h
AN: SM23C-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Magnetic Shielding of Energetic Ions
AU: Shepherd, J P
EM: john.p.g.shepherd@uwrf.edu
AF: University of Wisconsin, Department of Physics, River Falls, WI 54022, United States
AU: * Shepherd, S G
EM: simon.g.shepherd@dartmouth.edu
AF: Thayer School of Engineering Dartmouth College, 8000 Cummings Hall, Hanover, NH 03755, United States
AB: Shielding spacecraft and occupants from energetic ions is one of the many challenges that must be overcome before long duration manned space missions become a reality. Of the many different methods proposed, active magnetic shields appear to show promise and share some similarities with the geophysical counterpart in planetary magnetospheres. In both situations Störmer theory has been used to describe forbidden regions from which energetic particles of a given rigidity are excluded. While Störmer theory is strictly only valid for a pure dipole magnetic field it has been extended to include the field of a finite radius current-carrying coil. It is therefore possible to numerically determine forbidden regions for non-dipole geometries. We utilize this technique to determine the forbidden regions of a novel spacecraft shield constructed of circular coils of wire arranged roughly in the shape of a torus. With this geometry it is shown that the magnetic field inside the torus can be made to be exactly zero everywhere and still provide total shielding of energetic ions below a given rigidity.
DE: 0560 Numerical solutions (4255)
DE: 2104 Cosmic rays
DE: 3225 Numerical approximations and analysis (4260)
DE: 7914 Engineering for hazard mitigation
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting