Simulation of the Saturnian magnetospheric interaction with Titan

Energy deposition of pickup ions and heating of Titan's atmosphere

“…Test particles are followed from 1600 km to about 1000 km above the surface of Titan using the algorithm of Bird (1994). We use estimates of the incident fluxes of ambient flowing N + and molecular pickup ions from Brecht et al (2000). These are globally averaged fluxes based on the statistics of individual ion trajectories that intersect the exobase.…”

“…Since all these heavy molecular ions have similar masses we treat them as N 2 + . Therefore, in the present study the fluxes of N + and N 2 + are estimated from Brecht et al (2000). Earlier we described the heating by energetic H + , which deposits its energy much deeper in the atmosphere (Luna et al, 2003).…”

“…In addition, the energy deposited below the exobase provides a heat source that can in principal cause an increase in the exobase temperature and an expansion of the atmosphere (Johnson, 1990). Brecht et al (2000) used their hybrid, semi-kinetic model to study the interaction of magnetospheric plasma with Titan. Since C 2 H 5 + was suggested to be the major contributor to the ionospheric mass loading at higher altitudes by Fox and Yelle (1997), they used a calculated density profile for C 2 H 5 + to represent the possible pick-up ions.…”

The global plasma environment of Titan as observed by Cassini Plasma Spectrometer during the first two close encounters with Titan

“…This was improved upon by Ma et al [2004], who took into account a more complex ion composition and used a higher spatial resolution grid. Brecht et al [2000] published a hybrid model in which they found that the scale of the interaction region is dominated by the gyroradii of the heavy ambient and pickup ions rather than the size of Titan. Moreover, the upstream flow was perturbed as far as $10 Titan radii (R T ) from the moon along the Cassini orbit, and pickup ions could be seen at $5 R T ,.…”

Modeling of Venus, Mars, and Titan

“…In the last ten years, most of the hybrid models developed to study the Mars' plasma interaction have been adapted to investigate the interaction between Saturn's magnetospheric and Titan (Brecht et al 2000;Kallio et al 2004;Sillanpää et al 2007;Simon et al 2007Simon et al , 2009Modolo and Chanteur 2008;Ledvina et al 2011). MHD and multi-fluid models of Titan's plasma interaction have been somewhat advantageous in the dense regions of Titan's ionosphere since some models include chemical reaction and thus have a more complete description of this region (e.g.…”