Plasma Vortices in Planetary Wakes

Solar Cycle Variations in the Position of Vortex Structures in the Venus Wake

“…The fluid dynamic response of the solar wind that interacts with planetary ionospheres is ultimately produced by wave-particle interactions inferred from the observation of frequent oscillations in magnetic field profiles measured in the Venus wake [16][17][18]. As a whole such interactions provide a mechanism to transfer momentum between both ion populations and thus erode the upper layers of the Venus ionosphere [2]. That process implies in turn local plasma heating [19,see Fig.…”

“…H. Pérez-de-Tejada 1 * and R. Lundin 2 1 Institute of Geophysics, UNAM, Mexico 2 Swedish Space Research Institute, Kiruna, Sweden *Address all correspondence to: hectorperezdetejada@gmail.com © 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen.…”

“…It has been noted that the anti-solar directed flow of the plasma particles in the Venus wake is rotated to even become oriented back to Venus. The early measurement of that effect was reported by Pérez-de-Tejada et al [1][2][3] from the PVO plasma data and that gave place to conditions that could be assessed as resulting from a vortex structure. Further information on the observation of vortex structures in the Venus wake was reported by Lundin et al [4,5] from measurements conducted with the ASPERA instrument onboard VEX.…”

Vortex Structure in the Plasma Flow Channels of the Venus Wake

“…From the early analysis of the motion of the solar wind in the Venus wake with the PVO plasma data it was noted that in specific orbits the solar wind fluxes can be directed back into the planet from the wake [10,11]. The velocity distribution of those particles in the inner wake is reproduced in Figure 6 (upper panel) in cylindrical coordinates to indicate that the solar wind ions are forced to execute a nearly ~180° turn in their trajectory direction following the form of a fluid dynamic vortex structure.…”

“…(Upper panel) Velocity vectors of the solar wind ion fluxes measured during different energy cycles marked with rectangles in two PVO orbits projected on one quadrant across the Venus wake in cylindrical coordinates[10,11]. (Lower panel) Average updated direction of solar wind ion fluxes collected from many VEX orbits projected on cylindrical coordinates (Lundin, R., personal communication, 2016).…”