Ion Transport in Mercury's Magnetosphere during the MESSENGER Flyby

Details Ion Transport in Mercury's Magnetosphere during the MESSENGER Flyby Ion Transport in Mercury's Magnetosphere during the MESSENGER Flyby

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008epsc.conf..486s&link_type=abstract

European Planetary Science Congress 2008, Proceedings of the conference held 21-25 September, 2008 in Münster, Germany. Online a

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Abstract Heavy ions including sodium (Na+) are known to populate Mercury's magnetosphere and were observed in situ during the first MESSENGER flyby on January 14, 2008 [1]. A study has been undertaken to examine the transport, distribution, and energization of ions during solar wind conditions corresponding approximately to those that occurred during the MESSENGER flyby. Three-dimensional global hybrid simulations of Mercury's magnetosphere, which provide a realistic self-consistent electric and magnetic field configuration at the time of the flyby [2], are used to trace heavy-ion particle trajectories throughout the system. Because electrons are included only as a massless fluid in the hybrid simulations, electron transport can be examined as well using this technique. To examine solar-wind sputtering as a source for ion ejection from the planet, heavy ions are launched outward from regions near the planet where hybrid simulations show strong particle precipitation, and their trajectories are followed until they either hit the planet or are picked up by the solar wind and lost downstream. The heavy ions can be transported throughout the magnetosphere of Mercury and become accelerated by non-adiabatic processes in the magnetotail current sheet, as well as near reconnection regions. Ions will also be launched from the magnetosheath and other regions to model planetary ion sources as a result of photon-stimulated desorption from the dayside surface of Mercury. The simulated heavy-ion distribution and the energy profile of such ions in Mercury's magnetosphere provide a basis for comparison with MESSENGER flyby data. References [1] Zurbuchen T. H. et al. (2008) Science, in press. [2] Travnicek P. et al. (2007), Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05104, doi:10.1029/2006GL028518.

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