HR: 0800h
AN: P41B-10    [Abstracts]
TI: O⁺ at Titan's Exobase from a Hybrid Simulation
AU: * Sillanpää, I
EM: ilkka.sillanpaa@fmi.fi
AF: Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, HELSINKI, FI-00101, Finland
AU: Kallio, E
EM: esa.kallio@fmi.fi
AF: Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, HELSINKI, FI-00101, Finland
AU: Jarvinen, R
EM: riku.jarvinen@fmi.fi
AF: Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, HELSINKI, FI-00101, Finland
AU: Janhunen, P
EM: pekka.janhunen@fmi.fi
AF: Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, HELSINKI, FI-00101, Finland
AU: Hartle, R E
EM: Richard.E.Hartle@nasa.gov
AF: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, The Laboratory for Atmospheres Code 613, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AB: Titan's extensive atmosphere and exosphere interact with Saturn's rotating magnetospheric flow. We have studied this interaction with an advanced hybrid simulation model and present results for both the general characteristics of the interaction and the behavior of the O⁺ flow ions near the exobase for the conditions during the Voyager 1 flyby. Our model, that employs improved resolution and a realistic ion composition in the upstream flow (O⁺ and H⁺), shows that the ionotail and the magnetotail bend in a direction opposite to the convection electric field. We also present a simulated impact map for the oxygen ions of the flow with total O⁺ precipitation rate 1.3 · 10²⁴, s^-1 onto Titan's exobase. Although this rate indicates that the plasma conditions above the exobase do not inhibit O⁺ precipitation on the exobase, the direction of the O⁺ flow, however, is shown to turn drastically near the exobase. However, the light flow ions (H⁺) are effectively deflected by the magnetic barrier formed around Titan.
DE: 6026 Ionospheres (2459)
DE: 6033 Magnetospheres (2756)
DE: 6281 Titan
DE: 7827 Kinetic and MHD theory
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly