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- Beth, Arnaud, et al.
(författare)
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First investigation of the diamagnetic cavity boundary layer with a 1D3V PIC simulation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 667
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Amongst the different features and boundaries encountered around comets, one remains of particular interest to the plasma community: the diamagnetic cavity. Crossed for the first time at 1P/Halley during the Giotto flyby in 1986 and later met more than 700 times by the ESA Rosetta spacecraft around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, this region, almost free of any magnetic field, surrounds nuclei of active comets. However, previous observations and modelling of this part of the coma have not yet provided a definitive answer as to the origin of such a cavity and on its border, the diamagnetic cavity boundary layer.Aims: We investigate which forces and equilibrium might be at play and balance the magnetic pressure at this boundary down to the spatial and temporal scales of the electrons in the 1D collisionless case. In addition, we scrutinise assumptions made in magneto-hydrodynamic and hybrid simulations of this environment and check for their validity.Methods: We simulated this region at the electron scale by means of 1D3V particle-in-cell simulations and SMILEI code.Results: Across this layer, depending on the magnetic field strength, the electric field is governed by different equilibria, with a thin double-layer forming ahead. In addition, we show that the electron distribution function departs from Maxwellian and/or gyrotropic distributions and that electrons do not behave adiabatically. We demonstrate the need to investigate this region at the electron scale in depth with fully kinetic simulations.
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2. |
- Wellbrock, A., et al.
(författare)
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Observations of a Solar Energetic Particle Event from Inside and Outside the Coma of Comet 67P
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2169-9380 .- 2169-9402. ; 127:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We analyze observations of an SEP event at Rosetta’s target comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko during March 6th-10th 2015. The comet was 2.15AU from the Sun, with the Rosetta spacecraft approximately 70km from the nucleus placing it deep inside the comet’s coma and allowing us to study its response. The Eastern flank of an ICME also encountered Rosetta on March 6th and 7th. Rosetta’s RPC data indicate increases in ionization rates, and cometary water group pickup ions exceeding 1keV. Increased charge exchange reactions between solar wind ions and cometary neutrals also indicate increased upstream neutral populations consistent with enhanced SEP induced surface activity. In addition, the most intense parts of the event coincide with observations interpreted as an infant cometary bow shock, indicating that the SEPs may have enhanced the formation and/or intensified the observations. These solar transient events may also have pushed the cometopause closer to the nucleus.We track and discuss characteristics of the SEP event using remote observations by SOHO, WIND and GOES at the Sun, in-situ measurements at STEREO A, Mars and Rosetta, and ENLIL modeling. Based on its relatively prolonged duration, gradual and anisotropic nature and broad angular spread in the heliosphere, we determine the main particle acceleration source to be a distant ICME which emerged from the Sun on March 6th 2015 and was detected locally in the Martian ionosphere but was never encountered by 67P directly. The ICME’s shock produced SEPs for several days which traveled to the in-situ observation sites via magnetic field line connections.
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