Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello!
I am trying to comprehend the paper "The Magnetic Field and the Magnetosphere of the Planet Mars" by Dolginov, and while I understand most of it, is having trouble with the measuring units. This might be a difficult question for a high school level, but I'm willing to put time in looking it up... but I can't seem to find it in the web.

Can someone please share opinions on what "Tm^3" in the phrase "magnetic moment Mm~(l.35++0.03) 10^12 Tm^3" means?

It would also be appreciated if someone could recommend sites where I can find a list of symbols and abbreviations mean for physics related documents.

Thank you!

Hi InfiniteBeyond,

T m^3 are the units that the author is using to report the dipole moment. T stands for Tesla (a unit that describes magnetic fields, specifically magnetic flux density), m stands for meters (a unit of length). So, those units would be read as "Tesla meters cubed".

Using those particular units is somewhat funky for a dipole moment. Magnetic moments are usually reported in A m^2 (Amperes meters squared). Take a look at the box in the second slide of this presentation, which explains why T m^3 would be useful for describing the dipole moment of a planet.
http://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov/RoR_WWW/prese ... Dipole.pdf

These two pages give many of the symbols and abbreviations used in physics texts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _notations
http://jamesbrennan.org/physics/units.pdf

That said, different authors sometimes use the same symbol to mean different things. But, some symbols are fairly common (e.g., using B to represent magnetic field strength.

Post back if you have other questions.