3D Multispecies Hybrid Simulations of Titan's Highly Variable Plasma Environment

Details 3D Multispecies Hybrid Simulations of Titan's Highly Variable Plasma Environment 3D Multispecies Hybrid Simulations of Titan's Highly Variable Plasma Environment

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p13a0157s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P13A-0157

Physics

6281 Titan, 7827 Kinetic And Mhd Theory

Scientific paper

We present three-dimensional hybrid simulations of the interaction between Titan's ionosphere and the Saturnian magnetospheric plasma flow. Titan's orbit is located inside Saturn's magnetosphere most of the time, where the corotating plasma flow is superalfvenic, yet subsonic and submagnetosonic. Due to the characteristic length scales of the interaction region being comparable to the ion gyroradii in the vicinity of Titan, magnetohydrodynamic models can only offer a rough description of Titan's plasma environment. For this reason, Titan's plasma interaction has been studied by using a three-dimensional hybrid simulation code, treating the electrons as a massless, charge-neutralizing fluid, whereas a completely kinetic approach is used to cover ion dynamics. The simulations include up to two magnetospheric and three ionospheric ion species. The calculations are performed on a curvilinear simulation grid which can be adapted to the spherical geometry of the obstacle. In the model, Titan's dayside ionosphere is mainly generated by solar UV radiation. Since the Titan interaction features the possibility of having the densest ionosphere located on a face not aligned with the ram flow of the magnetospheric plasma, a variety of different scenarios can be studied. The simulations show the formation of a strong magnetic draping pattern and an extended pick-up region, being highly asymmetric with respect to the direction of the convective electric field. Besides, the results indicate that Titan's ionospheric tail acts like a natural mass-spectrometer. Due to the dependence of the gyroradii on the ion mass, ions of different masses become spatially dispersed in the tail region. The simulations also illustrate that the pick-up process of the light ionospheric species is slowed down by the heavier ones. The results are in agreement with data from recent Cassini flybys.

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