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AGU: Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics

 

Keywords

  • Titan's plasma injection
  • pickup ion distributions

Index Terms

  • Ionosphere: Ionosphere/magnetosphere interactions
  • Ionosphere: Planetary ionospheres
  • Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetosphere/ionosphere interactions
  • Magnetospheric Physics: Planetary magnetospheres
  • Space Plasma Physics: Kinetic and MHD theory
Abstract
Cited By (8)
 

Abstract

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 110, A06211, 16 PP., 2005
doi:10.1029/2004JA010771

Ion distributions in Saturn's magnetosphere near Titan

S. A. Ledvina

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

T. E. Cravens

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

K. Kecskeméty

KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, Budapest, Hungary

Titan's interaction with Saturn's magnetosphere is studied using a combination of a three-dimensional (3-D) single-fluid magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation and a test particle/Monte Carlo model. The MHD simulation includes an exosphere model based on the one used in the work of Cravens et al. (1998), simple ionospheric processes such as ion production, ion-neutral friction and dissociative recombination and provides a general picture of Titan's plasma environment. The fields from the MHD simulation are then used to calculate the trajectories of 1.4 × 106 ions. We calculate the velocity space distribution and differential energy flux for ambient H+ and N+ ions and for three generic species of pickup ions found upstream of, and within, Titan's plasma wake. The three generic pickup ion species we use are: light (e.g., H+ or H2 +), medium (e.g., N+, CH4 +, or CH5 +), and heavy (e.g., N2 +, HCNH+, or some other ionized heavy exospheric species) with representative masses 1, 14, and 28 amu. We also determine the ion flux into Titan's exobase for each species. The ambient ions are assumed to have a drifting Maxwellian distribution consistent with the Voyager observations, while the pickup ions are created with a radial distribution proportional to the neutral density profiles from the neutral exosphere model used in the 2-D MHD model of Cravens et al. (1998). The possibility that the ambient N+ ions may have a shell distribution rather than a Maxwellian is also considered. The modeled ion distributions are compared with data from the Voyager 1 Plasma Science Instrument (PLS).

Received 1 September 2004; accepted 23 March 2005; published 24 June 2005.

Citation: Ledvina, S. A., T. E. Cravens, and K. Kecskeméty (2005), Ion distributions in Saturn's magnetosphere near Titan, J. Geophys. Res., 110, A06211, doi:10.1029/2004JA010771.

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