Determining the Influence of the IMF and Planetary Magnetic Field Models on Mercury's Magnetosphere Along Spacecraft Trajectories of MESSENGER, BepiColombo and MPO

Abstract

Mercury's planetary magnetic field models (PMFMs) agree on a majorly dipolar field structure with a northward shift of the magnetic equator. However, due to the northerly biased orbit coverage of past spacecraft missions and different data analyzing methods, the available PMFMs differ in the determined multipole magnitudes for the dipole, quadrupole and octupole moments. While the PMFMs agree well with northern observations, we find that the predicted magnetic field values differ in the unexplored equatorial and southern regions. In the forward modeling approach of this study, we apply three different PMFM representatives, differing in their values of the dipole, quadrupole and octupole moments, and model the resulting solar wind interaction via a global hybrid model with sets of the 4 most common interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) directions under otherwise average solar wind conditions. Extracting our modeled fields along the flybys of MESSENGER and BepiColombo, as well as along four representative orbits of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), allows us to estimate local field variations due to IMF and PMFM influence. Our modeled magnetic field components separate significantly by up to 60 nT between the PMFMs in low‐altitude southern regions, leading to displacements of magnetopause, cusps and current sheet locations. We find that MESSENGER flyby observations agree best with modeled field ranges resulting from a quadrupolar PMFM and that certain nightside regions are useful to estimate upstream IMF polarity. We also demonstrate how comparing BepiColombo swingby and MPO orbit phase observations with modeled results can help determine the correct PMFM for Mercury.