HR: 17:20h
AN: SM34A-05 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Simulations of solar wind interactions with the terrestrial planets and asteroids: Recent achievements
AU: * Omidi, N
EM: omidi@solanasci.com
AF: Solana Scientific Inc., 777 S. HWY 101, suite 208B, solana beach, ca 92075, United States
AU: Blanco-Cano, X
EM: xbc@igeofcu.unam.mx
AF: Instituto de Geofisica UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacan, D.F.0451, Mexico
AU: Russell, C
EM: ctrussel@igpp.ucla.ed
AF: IGPP, box 951567 UCLA, Los Angeles, ca 90095, United States
AB: The interaction of the solar wind with magnetized planets and asteroids is examined using global hybrid simulations that treat ions kinetically through particle-in-cell methods and the electrons form a massless fluid. These simulations allow us to investigate the nature of the resulting magnetospheres whose sizes range from proton kinetic scales such as gyroradius and skin depth to much larger systems. For a given solar wind condition, the global properties of dipolar magnetospheres are found to increase in complexity with increasing dipole strength. In its simplest form, the magnetosphere consists of a whistler wake while magnetospheres larger than about 1/30 that of the Earth have terrestrial characteristics. In this talk, we review these results and their implications for magnetospheres of asteroids and the inner planets. We also examine the scaling properties of magnetospheric regions and processes such as the bow shock, magnetosheath, magnetopause and magnetic reconnection. The results indicate that while different regions and processes have differing scaling properties, for magnetospheres larger than 1/30 of the Earth the same basic processes are operative.
DE: 2700 MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS (6939)
DE: 2724 Magnetopause and boundary layers
DE: 2740 Magnetospheric configuration and dynamics
DE: 2753 Numerical modeling
DE: 2756 Planetary magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6033)
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly