Distribution of sodium pickup ions during MESSENGER's first and second Mercury flybys: constraints on exospheric models

Details Distribution of sodium pickup ions during MESSENGER's first and second Mercury flybys: constraints on exospheric models Distribution of sodium pickup ions during MESSENGER's first and second Mercury flybys: constraints on exospheric models

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.u21a0043s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #U21A-0043

Physics

2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, 5443 Magnetospheres (2756), 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 6033 Magnetospheres (2756), 6235 Mercury

Scientific paper

A test particle model of sodium pickup ions at Mercury is used to investigate the likely distribution of neutral sodium about the planet during the time of the first MESSENGER flyby. The test particles are weighted by exosphere models corresponding to the release processes of ion sputtering and photon-stimulated desorption (PSD). The ionization of the sodium exosphere followed by pick-up by the magnetosheath convection flow is modeled using magnetospheric fields from a magnetohydrodynamic simulation. The Maxwellian PSD component is gravitationally bound and does not appreciably contribute to the pickup ion distribution above the magnetopause. Furthermore, the neutral model PSD distribution provided by a Weibull function would substantially "mass-load" the upstream solar wind contrary to what is observed by MESSENGER. It is concluded that the sodium magnetosheath ions originate mainly from an escaping neutral cloud due to ion sputtering and/or to a partially escaping PSD distribution modified by regolith trapping. These results will be compared with ion measurements during the second MESSENGER flyby because the overlapping of the exosphere with the magnetosphere is expected to be more favorable as Mercury approaches its perihelion.

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