Name: Kun Li
Position: Associate Professor
Office: Haiqin No.2 A237
Email: likun37 at mail.sysu.edu.cn
Areas of Interest:
- Ionospheric outflows on magnetized and un-magnetized planets and their impacts on the magnetospheric dynamics.
- Techniques to measure the low-energy plasma in ionospheric outflowS and THEIR associated parameters.
Research overview:
Every second, the Earth losses a considerable amount of its atmosphere into the interplanetary space through ionospheric outflow. Over the geological time scale, the accumulative effect of such a mass loss is believed to change the habitability of our planet.
However, whether the intrinsic magnetic field of a planet hinders atmospheric escape is still debated. Although the Earth’s intrinsic magnetic field prevents the solar wind from interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere directly, several indirect ways have been identified to efficiently transfer energies from the solar wind to the atmosphere. Besides, the Earth has a larger magnetosphere compared with those of Mars and Venus, leading to a larger area for receiving energies from the solar wind.
To study the role of intrinsic magnetic fields on the evolution of planetary habitability, we need to understand various mechanisms of ionospheric outflows from magnetized and un-magnetized planets and how these mechanisms respond to the enhancement in energy input from the Sun. The main challenge is to measure the ionospheric plasma with energies often below the lower detection limit of ordinary space instruments. Therefore, our research is mainly focused on the outflow mechanisms on different planets and the new techniques to measure the low-energy plasma from the ionosphere.