Pitch angle (particle motion) A pitch angle of 90 degrees is a particle that is locally mirroring (see: Magnetosphere particle motion). The equatorial pitch angle of a particle is the pitch angle of the particle at the Earth's geomagnetic equator. This angle defines the loss cone of a particle. The loss cone is the set of angles where the particle will strike the atmosphere and no longer be trapped in the magnetosphere while particles with pitch angles outside the loss cone will continue to be trapped. The loss cone is defined as the probability of particle loss from the magnetic bottle which is: Where
Degrees of freedom (mechanics) would have a combined DOF that is the sum of the DOFs of the bodies, less the internal constraints they may have on relative motion. A mechanism or linkage containing a number of connected rigid bodies may have more than the degrees of freedom for a single rigid body. Here the term "degrees of freedom" is used to describe the number of parameters needed to specify the spatial pose of a linkage. A specific type of linkage is the open kinematic chain, where a set of rigid links are connected at joints; a joint may provide one DOF (hinge/sliding), or