The orientation of Titan’s dayside ionosphere and its effects on Titan’s plasma interaction

Autor:	Stephen A. Ledvina, Stephen H. Brecht, Thomas E. Cravens
Rok vydání:	2012
Předmět:	Physics Magnetosphere Geology Geophysics Plasma First order Computational physics Magnetic field Ion symbols.namesake Illumination angle Space and Planetary Science Physics::Space Physics symbols Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Ionosphere Titan (rocket family)
Zdroj:	Earth, Planets and Space. 64:207-230
ISSN:	1880-5981 1343-8832
DOI:	10.5047/eps.2011.08.009
Popis:	A hybrid particle code has been used to examine how Titan’s interaction with Saturn’s magnetosphere is effected by the orientation of the dayside ionosphere with respect to the incident magnetospheric flow. The hybrid code self-consistently includes a version of Titan’s ionosphere represented by 7 generic ion species, over 40 ionneutral chemical reactions, ion-neutral collisions and Hall and Pederson conductivities. Emphasis is placed on what effects the orientation angle has on the ion loss rates, ion densities, and the electric and magnetic fields. The results are analyzed and regardless of the orientation angle the ionosphere is found to be within photochemical equilibrium below 1200 km altitude. The ion loss rates and field structures also show little dependence on the orientation of the dayside ionosphere. It is found to first order illumination angle does not have a significant effect on these features of the Titan interaction.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_dedup___::a74c7771895c634d29b989c3b860c482 https://doi.org/10.5047/eps.2011.08.009 Zobrazit plný text záznamu Full text from SpringerLink