Ion trajectories in Mercury's magnetosphere

Details Ion trajectories in Mercury's magnetosphere Ion trajectories in Mercury's magnetosphere

Apr 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja.....8660s&link_type=abstract

EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #8660

Physics

Scientific paper

The atmosphere of Mercury is eroded quickly by photoionization and electron impact ionization. Resulting ions are affected by both magnetic and electric field forces due to their small energy. The escape flux of these ions from Mercury's magnetosphere is believed to respond to the degree of solar wind - Hermean magnetosphere interaction. We present the structure of the Hermean magnetosphere obtained by the Toffoletto-Hill (JGR 98, 1339, 1993) model of an open magnetosphere, and supplement it with the Ding et al. (Phys. Space Plasmas, 1996) potential solver to represent the convection electric field. We follow thousands of Na and K ions in a tight grid of magnetic and electric fields at Mercury. Ions are created with a spatial distribution given from the neutral distribution to cover the entire dayside, and are launched at the surface, with an isotropic angular distribution. The initial energy is taken to be ˜1eV. We calculate the loci of points where the ions reimpact the planetary surface. We conclude that the dawn-dusk asymmetry and high-latitude enhancements in the sodium atmosphere are perpetuated by the pattern of ion redistribution due to a predominant dawn to dusk electric field. The solar wind ion sputtering effect will further amplify atmospheric patchiness.

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