Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm13d..02r&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM13D-02
Physics
[2732] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere Interactions With Satellites And Rings, [2753] Magnetospheric Physics / Numerical Modeling, [5421] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Interactions With Particles And Fields, [6221] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Europa
Scientific paper
Jupiter’s moon Europa has a complex and tightly coupled interaction with the Jovian magnetosphere. Neutral gas of the moon’s exosphere is ionized and picked up by the corotating plasma that sweeps past Europa at a relative velocity of almost 100 km/s. This pick-up process alters the magnetic and electric field topology around Europa, which in turn affects the trajectories of the pick-up ions as well as the thermal and hot magnetospheric ions that hit the moon’s icy surface. In turn these surface-impinging ions are the responsible source for the sputtered neutral atmosphere, which itself is again crucial for the exospheric mass loading of the surrounding plasma. We use the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) model BATSRUS to model the interaction of Europa with the Jovian magnetosphere. The model accounts for the exospheric mass loading, ion-neutral charge exchange, and ion-electron recombination [Kabin et al. (J. Geophys. Res., 104, A9, 19,983-19,992, 1999)]. The derived magnetic and electric fields are then used in our Test Particle Monte Carlo (TPMC) model to integrate individual particle trajectories under the influence of the Lorentz force. We take the measurements performed by Galileo’s Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) [Williams et al. (Sp. Sci. Rev. 60, 385-412, 1992) and Cooper et al. (Icarus 149, 133-159, 2001)] and the Plasma Analyzer (PLS) [Paterson et al. (J. Geophys. Res., 104, A10, 22,779-22,791, 1999)] as boundary conditions. Using a Monte Carlo technique allows to individually track ions in a wide energy range and to individually calculate their energy deposition on the moon’s surface. The sputtering yield is a function of incident particle type, energy, and mass. We use the measurements performed by Shi et al. (J. Geophys. Res., 100, E12, 26,387-26,395, 1995) to turn the modeled impinging ion flux into a neutral gas production rate at the surface. We will show preliminary results of this work with application to the missions to the Jupiter system currently under consideration by NASA (JEO) and ESA (JGO). We will show energy dependent surface irradiation maps and calculate the source of the sputtered exospheric neutrals.
Combi Michael R.
Gombosi Tamas I.
Hansen Kenneth Calvin
Jia Xun
Rubin Mathieu
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