Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p13b1323m&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P13B-1323
Other
5405 Atmospheres (0343, 1060), 5435 Ionospheres (2459), 5440 Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, 5443 Magnetospheres (2756)
Scientific paper
Because of low gravity in the Mars environment, Mars has an extended oxygen and hydrogen corona. The solar-wind-Mars interaction is profoundly influenced by both the mass loading and ion escape mechanisms operating around Mars. Although several attempts have been made in numerical simulations to account for the observationally obtained unique features of Mars, e. g. existence of the magnetic pile-up boundary and the time and spatially varying ion loss rates, it cannot be said we have obtained any definite conclusion about the physical mechanisms leading to these features. Here we discuss these points in light of a newly developed MHD multi-fluid code focusing upon the relative significance of the bulk ionopspheric outflow vs. ion pick up loss mechanisms associated with oxygen/hydrogen corona. Although not all the observed features are accounted for by numerical simulations, several things have been made clear: (1) Cooling of magnetosheath plasma due to chemical processes occurring just above the dayside ionosphere has a significant effect to determine the plasma flow around Mars. In extreme cases it leads to a formation of planetward/vortex motions behind the planet. (2) Magnetic tension whose effect is strongest in the plane perpendicular to the IMF makes the escaping ions to converge to the center portion of the tail. Thus the tail center ray is produced by magnetic tension (actually by electric field associated with magnetic tension). On the other hand, ion escape from the top of the ionosphere leads to the boundary ion ray flux in the tail. (3) It is presently difficult to reproduce the magnetic pile-up boundary via chemical processes with the present knowledge of the distribution of oxygen/hydrogen corona. The crucial points, which would be applicable to both MHD and hybrid codes, are: (A) Oxygen and hydrogen coronae have too large scale heights to reproduce chemically a very sharp boundary as observed at MPB. (B)In the dayside low-altitude magnetosheath, the plasma beta value is already low due to the flow divergence along field lines so that the thermal effects produced by chemical processes cannot change the magnetic field magnitude/configurations appreciably. The only exception will be the case where the oxygen corona is much denser than predicted.
Jin Hongying
Kubota Yasuhiro
Maezawa Kiyoshi
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