Atmospheric loss caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability: What can we expect from Mars- and Venus Express?

Details Atmospheric loss caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability: What can we expect from Mars- and Venus Express? Atmospheric loss caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability: What can we expect from Mars- and Venus Express?

Apr 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....12613p&link_type=abstract

EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #12613

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Scientific paper

Measurements of electron density by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter electron temperature probe showed extreme spatial irregularities in the form of detached plasma clouds on the night side of Venus. It is suggested that Kelvin Helmholtz (KH) instabilities may trigger such ionospheric bubbles on Mars too. The ASPERA instrument on board of the Russian Mars probe Phobos 2 has detected a large outflow of heavy ions containing a substantial mixture of molecular ions like O2+ and CO2+. Since heavy particles have scale heights much smaller than upper atmospheric constituents like O its concentration in the exosphere should be correspondingly low. Thus, there must be a mechanism to transport these heavy molecular ions into the solar wind interaction region. We investigate the KH-instability at the ionopause of Venus and Mars resulting from the flow of the solar wind for the case where the interplanetary magnetic field is oriented normal to the flow direction. Since the Larmor radius of the particles is comparable with the thickness of the boundary layer, an ideal magnetohydrodynamic formulation of the KH-instability is inapplicable to the stability problem at the interface of two interacting fluids with different shear velocities. Therefore, we apply simultaneously both effects to treat the general problem of the KH-instability. We estimate the escape rates of heavy atmospheric ions which are lost by ionospheric bubbles and compare these results with loss rates caused by other non-thermal atmospheric escape processes. Further, we discuss our results in view of the expected observations of heavy ion loss rates by ASPERA-3 on board of Mars Express and ASPERA-4 and the magnetormeter VEXMAG on board of Venus Express.

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