Other
Scientific paper
Feb 1991
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991phdt........58g&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 1991.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: B, page:
Other
Planetary Atmosphere, Comet, Halley, Venus, Titan
Scientific paper
Electrons play an important role in solar wind -planetary interactions. Electron impact ionization has been proven to account for a significant portion of the total ion production. Electron energetics can also strongly influence the overall structure of the plasma distribution. A two-stream transport model for suprathermal electrons and a time-dependent energy equation for thermal electrons have been used to find the electron distributions at the solar wind-planetary atmosphere boundary regions of comet Halley, Venus, and Titan. The results have provided us with a clearer understanding of the electron distributions in these regions, and of the collisional processes that contribute to the energy dissipation and energy budget among atmospheric species. Application of the model equations to the inner coma of comet Halley has demonstrated the existence of a sharp transition boundary, called the thermal electron collisionopause, near a cometocentric distance of about 1.5 times 10^4 km. Inside this boundary, a cold (T < 10^4 K) thermal electron component exists along with suprathermal electrons of solar wind and photoelectron origin. Outside, there is no cold thermal electron component, and the electrons are isothermal along magnetic field lines. Application of the model to Venus' dayside upper ionosphere and the mantle region has given suprathermal electron distributions as functions of altitude, solar zenith angle, and the solar wind boundary conditions. The overall suprathermal electron spectrum agrees in general with the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO) measurements. The calculated electron temperatures agree very well with PVO measurements in the mantle region, as well as in the magnetized ionosphere, suggesting that horizontal energy transport is an adequate mechanism for the energy deposition in this case. Application of the model to the interaction region between Saturn's magnetosphere and Titan's ionosphere leads to the conclusion that airglow emission due to photo-electron impact is a much more important process than that produced by magnetospheric electron interactions. The photoelectrons also make a much larger contribution to the ion productions than the magnetospheric electrons do.
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