MHD Simulations of Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves at the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn

Details MHD Simulations of Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves at the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn MHD Simulations of Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves at the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm23a1936w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM23A-1936

Physics

[2756] Magnetospheric Physics / Planetary Magnetospheres, [5734] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, [6207] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Comparative Planetology

Scientific paper

We have used global magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth, Jupiter and Saturn to investigate the conditions under which surface waves form on a magnetopause. This talk is motivated by our experience in modeling Saturn’s magnetosphere. We find that large vortices form in a region near the morning magnetopause when Saturn’s rapidly rotating magnetosphere interacts with northward IMF but not for southward IMF. The oscillations are consistent with the Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instability. Similar waves have been reported from simulations of the Earth’s magnetosphere for both northward and southward IMF and on both the morning and afternoon magnetopauses. At the Earth whether or not the boundary becomes unstable is determined by the solar wind velocity while at Saturn whether waves form is strongly influenced by the rotating velocity within the magnetosphere. Waves also are found in our simulations of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. However, they differ greatly from those at either Saturn or the Earth. In our Jupiter simulations waves are found for northward IMF at the afternoon magnetopause. At Jupiter the waves strongly modulate magnetopause reconnection. The periods of the waves are minutes at Earth, 1-3 hours at Saturn and days at Jupiter.

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