Physics
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusmsm14a..04c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #SM14A-04
Physics
6280 Saturnian Satellites, 7833 Mathematical And Numerical Techniques (0500, 3200), 7837 Neutral Particles (2151)
Scientific paper
We present a new DSMC (Direct Simulation Monte Carlo) model of Saturn's extended neutral torus. Previous models (e.g., Jurac and Richardson, 2005; Johnson et al. 2006) have attributed the cloud's observed breadth to plasma interaction. We found, instead, that neutral-neutral collisions could be as important in spreading the cloud. As suggested by Farmer (2008), a component of the cloud can spread like a stellar accretion disk: collisions impart a small fraction of the cloud with high energy and angular momentum, causing an expansion. This is compensated by an inward-moving component which, if not first ionized or accelerated to high energy by charge exchange, is lost to Saturn's rings or atmosphere. The substantial loss of H2O to Saturn's atmosphere, combined with the oxygen scattered from the ring atmosphere (Tseng et al., 2009) may provide the missing O source required by models of Saturn's stratosphere (Moses et al., 2002). The work may also help to explain new observations of the outer neutral cloud, which is broader than previously believed.
Cassidy Timothy A.
Johnson Robert E.
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