Dynamics of pickup ion velocity distribution in Titan's plasma environment: 3D hybrid simulation and comparison with CAPS's observations

Details Dynamics of pickup ion velocity distribution in Titan's plasma environment: 3D hybrid simulation and comparison with CAPS's observations Dynamics of pickup ion velocity distribution in Titan's plasma environment: 3D hybrid simulation and comparison with CAPS's observations

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm11c1763s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM11C-1763

Physics

[2732] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere Interactions With Satellites And Rings, [6280] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

The wave-particle interactions play a very important role in the plasma dynamics near Titan: mass loading, excitation of the low-frequency waves and the formation of the particle velocity distribution function, e.g. ring/shell-like distributions, etc. The kinetic approach is important for estimation of the collision processes e.g. a charge exchange. The particle velocity distribution also plays a key role for understanding the observed particle fluxes. In this report we discuss the ion velocity distribution dynamics from the 3D hybrid simulation. The simulations are based on recent analysis of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) ion measurements during the T9 flyby through the induced magnetic tail of Titan [1]. In our model the background ions, all pickup ions, and ionospheric ions are considered as a particles, whereas the electrons are described as a fluid. Inhomogeneous photoionization, electron-impact ionization and charge exchange are included in our model. The temperature of the background electrons and pickup electrons was also included into the generalized Ohm's law. We also take into account the collisions between the ions and neutrals. The current simulation shows that mass loading by pickup ions H+, H2+, CH4+ and N2+ is stronger than in the previous simulations. We consider two models for the upstream composition: (a) only magnetospheric H+ and H2+, (b) only H+ and H2+ pickup ions. In our hybrid simulations we use Chamberlain profiles for the exosphere's components. We also include a simple ionosphere model with M=28 ions that were generated inside the ionosphere. The moon is considered as weakly conducting body. Special attention will be paid to comparing the simulated pickup ion velocity distribution with CAPS's T9 (events 1 and 2) observations. We also compare our realistic 3D kinetic simulation with a 1D kinetic simulation that was performed with a fine spatial resolution [2]. References [1] Sittler, E.C., et al., Saturn's Magnetospheric Interaction with Titan as Defined by Cassini Encounters T9 and T18: New Results, Planet. Space Sci., doi.10.1016/j.pss.2009.09.017. [2] Cowee, M.M., Tokar, R.L., Gary S.P., Wei, H.Y., Russell, C.T., and Sittler, E.C., 2009. 1D Hybrid Simulations of Ion Cyclotron Wave Generation by Pickup Ions at Titan, Fall AGU 2009 Meeting, 14-18 Dec., 2009, San Francisco, CA.

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