Gyro-resonance
Detailed descriptionThis project investigates the effect of the exospheric sodium ion population on the growth of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in the velocity shear layer at Mercury's magnetotail. We use a 2D hybrid simulation which treats ions as individual macroparticles and electrons as a massless, charge-neutralizing fluid. This enables us to study the kinetic processes associated with the interactions between solar wind proton, magnetospheric proton, and magnetospheric sodium ion populations to reproduce the apparent sodium scale vortices observed by MESSENGER at Mercury.
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Projects |
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List of simulations
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merc2d_s0p5 Local hybrid simulation of shear layers at the dusk and dawn flanks of Mercury's magnetotail, for a sodium ion density equal to half the magnetospheric proton density. Available products: B, Bx, By, Bz, nmsp, nNa, nswp |
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CoordinatesThe 2D simulation plane is in Mercury's equatorial plane, with the local magnetic field in the z-direction, the solar wind velocity in the y-direction, and velocity shear (gradient) in the x-direction. The centre (in x) is dominated by the solar wind population, and the outer edges are dominated by the magnetospheric populations. The simulation is periodic in both x and y. |
Initial conditionsMagnetic field B = (0,0,1) in simulation units. Magnetospheric proton, solar wind proton, and sodium ion number densities = (1,4,0.5) normalised to the magnetospheric proton number density. Thermal velocities (0.4,1.2,0.2) in units of the magnetospheric proton Alfven speed. Solar wind velocity = 0.8v_A. |
ParametersGrid size: Nx=256, Ny=252; Time step: dt=0.02 in units of inversed proton gyrofrequency. Cell size: dx=dy=0.5 in units of proton inertial length. |
Simulation presets
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Products in simulation
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