The French-Soviet Araks experiments: Main results

This chapter reports on the Artificial Radiation and Aurora between Kerguelen and the Soviet Union (Araks) experiment, whose objectives were to study the motion of an electron beam inside the magnetosphere with a particular attention focused on the large scale phenomena (e.g. location of the conjugate point), and to study the interaction of the beam with the surrounding plasma. Topics considered include geometry and the experimental set-up, conjugated observations, neutralization of the electron gun, and waves emission. The Araks experiments were designed to study the injection of an electron beam into the ionospheric plasma. It is concluded that active experiment is promising for field line mapping in the auroral zone and precise investigation of beam-plasma interaction