Structure of Mercury's magnetosphere for different pressure of the solar wind: three dimensional hybrid simulations

Details Structure of Mercury's magnetosphere for different pressure of the solar wind: three dimensional hybrid simulations Structure of Mercury's magnetosphere for different pressure of the solar wind: three dimensional hybrid simulations

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm23a0308t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM23A-0308

Other

2753 Numerical Modeling, 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, 5443 Magnetospheres (2756)

Scientific paper

We carried out a simulation study examining the self-consistent interaction of the solar wind with Mercury's magnetosphere. We consider two cases, one with relatively high solar wind pressure, which can occur when Mercury is close to the Sun at its perihelion, and another with relatively low solar wind pressure (aphelion). The differences in magnetospheric structures such as the foreshock, magnetopause, cusps, plasma sheet and ion rings, between the high and low solar wind pressure cases were studied. With lower solar wind pressure, the magnetopause nose forms at about 1.7 R_M (where Mercury's planetary radius R_M = 2439~km) and well pronounced cusp regions are formed; also a closed ion ring forms around the planet. In the higher solar wind pressure case the magnetopause is pushed much closer to Mercury's surface (~ 1.2 R_M) and the cusp regions are less pronounced; the ion ring in this case is confined to a region much closer to the planet with a much smaller radial extent. In both cases reconnection occurs at about ~ 2.4 R_M down the magnetotail and a plasma sheet is formed. In general the plasma within the magnetosphere is more energetic in the high solar wind pressure case and the ion foreshock contains hotter magnetosheath plasma. Particles ejected from the planet disperse through the magnetosphere, with the greatest congregation occuring in the planetary drift driven rings in both cases. These planetary particles leak upstream into the foreshock region.

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