Pick-Up Oxygen Ion Loss at Mars

Details Pick-Up Oxygen Ion Loss at Mars Pick-Up Oxygen Ion Loss at Mars

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm41b1867c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM41B-1867

Physics

Plasma Physics

[2152] Interplanetary Physics / Pickup Ions, [2780] Magnetospheric Physics / Solar Wind Interactions With Unmagnetized Bodies, [6225] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mars, [7845] Space Plasma Physics / Particle Acceleration

Scientific paper

The Mars pick-up ion transport model has been developed to study the relative role of kinetic processes on ion transport through near-Mars space. Mars does not have a strong, intrinsic dipole magnetic field and consequently the solar wind directly interacts with the dayside upper atmosphere causing particles to be stripped away from the atmosphere. The Mars Pickup Ion Model model calculates the detailed ion velocity space distribution (VSD) through a background magnetic and electric field model at specific locations. The main objective of this work is to robustly probe the sources of planetary ion escape from Mars' upper atmosphere. We explore three sources of ions: photoionization, charge exchange collisions, and impact ionization. Our results illustrate distinct differences in the velocity space distributions from the different source mechanisms, which can be used to decipher Mars ion observations according to their source population. Because the VSDs are non-Maxwellian and reveal asymmetirc, non-gyrotropic features, our simulation can uniquely investigate these distributions without using the Maxwellian assumptions of current MHD models. Our results help to further examine quantify the physical processes and source locations for specific VSD fine-structure features, and to put this into the context of real and virtual observations of escaping planetary ions.

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