Numerical Simulation of Dust in a Cometary Coma: Application to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

The Rosetta spacecraft is en route to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for a rendezvous, landing, and extensive orbital phase beginning in 2014. With a limited amount of available observational data, planning of the mission as well as the interpretation of measurements obtained by instruments on board the spacecraft requires modeling of the dusty/gas environment of the comet. During the mission, the collision regime in the inner coma will change starting from transitional to fully collisionless. As a result, a physically correct model has to be valid at conditions that are far from equilibrium and account for the kinetic nature of the processes occurring in the coma. A study of the multi-species coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is presented in our previous paper, where we describe our kinetic model and discuss the results of its application to cases that correspond to the different stages during the mission. In this work, we focus on numerical modeling of the dust phase in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and its interaction with the surrounding gas. The basic phenomena that govern the dynamics and energy balance of the dust grains are outlined. The effect of solar radiation pressure and the nucleus gravity in limiting the maximum liftable mass of the grains is discussed. The distribution of the terminal velocity of the dust grains as a function of subsolar angle is derived in the paper. We have found that in the regions with high gradients of the gas density, spike-like features can form in the dust flow. The obtained results represent the state of the coma in the vicinity of the nucleus for a series of stages throughout the Rosetta mission. The implications of the model results for future measurements by the GIADA instrument are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90750/1/0004-637X_732_2_104.pd

DSMC Simulation of the Cometary Coma

The study of the comet coma, or its tenuous atmosphere, is a major space application of rarefied gas dynamics, which requires modeling the gas flow in a wide range of Knudsen number. For weak to moderate comets, only the subsolar region of the coma is in a collision dominated regime. In the low density regions of the upper atmospheres of the planets and the planetary satellites and the middle to outer coma of comets the intermolecular mean free path becomes longer then the characteristic length of the problem, which makes using of conventional methods of computational gas dynamics problematic and implies the requirement to model the system based on the Boltzmann equation. Here we present results of a first application of a fully parallelized implementation of Direct Simulation Monte Carlo for axisymmetric cometary comae. © 2003 American Institute of PhysicsPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87931/2/696_1.pd

Hot carbon corona in Mars' upper thermosphere and exosphere: 2. Solar cycle and seasonal variability

This work presents the variability over seasons (i.e., orbital position) and solar cycle of the Martian upper atmosphere and hot carbon corona. We investigate the production and distribution of energetic carbon atoms and the impacts on the total global hot carbon loss from dominant photochemical processes at five different cases: AL (aphelion and low solar activity), EL (equinox and low solar activity), EH (equinox and high solar activity), PL (perihelion and low solar activity), and PH (perihelion and high solar activity). We compare our results with previously published results but only on the limited cases due to the dearth of studies on solar EUV flux and seasonal variabilities. Photodissociation of CO and dissociative recombination of CO+ are generally regarded as the two most important source reactions for the production of hot atomic carbon. Of these two, photodissociation of CO is found to be the dominant source in all cases considered. To describe self‐consistently the exosphere and the upper thermosphere, a 3‐D kinetic particle simulator, the Adaptive Mesh Particle Simulator, and the 3‐D Mars Thermosphere General Circulation Model are one‐way coupled. The basic description of this hot carbon calculation can be found in the companion paper to this one. The spatial distributions and profiles of density and temperature and atmospheric loss rates are discussed for the cases considered. Finally, our computed global escape rate of hot carbon ranges from 5.28 × 1023 s−1 (AL) to 55.1 × 1023 s−1 (PL).Key PointsSolar cycle and seasonal variability of hot C corona is simulated in 3‐DOur simulation considered PD of CO and DR of CO+ as main sourcesThe estimated escape rates range from 5.28 to 55.1E23 s−1Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110543/1/jgre20338.pd

Hot carbon corona in Mars’ upper thermosphere and exosphere: 1. Mechanisms and structure of the hot corona for low solar activity at equinox

Two important source reactions for hot atomic carbon on Mars are photodissociation of CO and dissociative recombination of CO + ; both reactions are highly sensitive to solar activity and occur mostly deep in the dayside thermosphere. The production of energetic particles results in the formation of hot coronae that are made up of neutral atoms including hot carbon. Some of these atoms are on ballistic trajectories and return to the thermosphere, and others escape. Understanding the physics in this region requires modeling that captures the complicated dynamics of hot atoms in 3‐D. This study evaluates the carbon atom inventory by investigating the production and distribution of energetic carbon atoms using the full 3‐D atmospheric input. The methodology and details of the hot atomic carbon model calculation are given, and the calculated total global escape of hot carbon from the assumed dominant photochemical processes at a fixed condition, equinox ( L s  = 180°), and low solar activity ( F 10.7 = 70 at Earth) are presented. To investigate the dynamics of these energetic neutral atoms, we have coupled a self‐consistent 3‐D global kinetic model, the Adaptive Mesh Particle Simulator, with a 3‐D thermosphere/ionosphere model, the Mars Thermosphere General Circulation Model to provide a self‐consistent global description of the hot carbon corona in the upper thermosphere and exosphere. The spatial distributions of density and temperature and atmospheric loss are simulated for the case considered. Key Points Hot C corona is simulated at the fixed condition within our frameworks Background atmosphere greatly impacts the structure of hot C corona The estimated global escape rates of hot C is 5.9 x 1023 s‐1Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107587/1/jgre20239.pd

Hall Effect in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Magnetohydrodynamics simulations have been carried out in studying the solar wind and cometary plasma interactions for decades. Various plasma boundaries have been simulated and compared well with observations for comet 1P/Halley. The Rosetta mission, which studies comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, challenges our understanding of the solar wind and comet interactions. The Rosetta Plasma Consortium observed regions of very weak magnetic field outside the predicted diamagnetic cavity. In this paper, we simulate the inner coma with the Hall magnetohydrodynamics equations and show that the Hall effect is important in the inner coma environment. The magnetic field topology becomes complex and magnetic reconnection occurs on the dayside when the Hall effect is taken into account. The magnetic reconnection on the dayside can generate weak magnetic filed regions outside the global diamagnetic cavity, which may explain the Rosetta Plasma Consortium observations. We conclude that the substantial change in the inner coma environment is due to the fact that the ion inertial length (or gyro radius) is not much smaller than the size of the diamagnetic cavity.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figur

Constituting We the People

We study roles of the thermosphere and exosphere on the Martian ionospheric structure and ion escape rates in the process of the solar wind-Mars interaction. We employ a four-species multifluid MHD (MF-MHD) model to simulate the Martian ionosphere and magnetosphere. The $cold$ thermosphere background is taken from the Mars Global Ionosphere Thermosphere Model (M-GITM) and the $hot$ oxygen exosphere is adopted from the Mars exosphere Monte Carlo model - Adaptive Mesh Particle Simulator (AMPS). A total of four cases with the combination of 1D (globally averaged) and 3D thermospheres and exospheres are studied. The ion escape rates calculated by adopting 1D and 3D atmospheres are similar; however, the latter are required to adequately reproduce MAVEN ionospheric observations. In addition, our simulations show that the 3D hot oxygen corona plays an important role in preventing planetary molecular ions (O$_2^+$ and CO$_2^+$) escaping from Mars, mainly resulting from the mass loading of the high-altitude exospheric O$^+$ ions. The $cold$ thermospheric oxygen atom, however, is demonstrated to be the primary neutral source for O$^+$ ion escape during the relatively weak solar cycle 24.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physic

Kinetic Simulation of Air Flow Around Hollow Cylinder Flare Configuration

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76912/1/AIAA-2002-3299-777.pd

Narrow Dust Jets in a Diffuse Gas Coma: A Natural Product of Small Active Regions on Comets

Comets often display narrow dust jets but more diffuse gas comae when their eccentric orbits bring them into the inner solar system and sunlight sublimates the ice on the nucleus. Comets are also understood to have one or more active areas covering only a fraction of the total surface active with sublimating volatile ices. Calculations of the gas and dust distribution from a small active area on a comet's nucleus show that as the gas moves out radially into the vacuum of space it expands tangentially, filling much of the hemisphere centered on the active region. The dust dragged by the gas remains more concentrated over the active area. This explains some puzzling appearances of comets having collimated dust jets but more diffuse gaseous atmospheres. Our test case is 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the Rosetta mission target comet, whose activity is dominated by a single area covering only 4% of its surface.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98552/1/0004-637X_749_1_29.pd