An MHD + test particle study of the solar wind-Mars interaction

SCHNEITER, E. M.; VELAZQUEZ, P. F.; BLANCO-CANO, X.; ESQUIVEL, A

UBA

Workshop; TENTH J.J. GIAMBIAGI WINTER SCHOOL Principles and Applications of Fluid Dynamics; 2008

Departamento de física de la escuela de ciencias de la Universidad de Buenos Aires

The solar wind interaction with Mars is very different to that of Earth because Mars lacks aglobal magnetic field. Despite this fact, an induced magnetic boundary is formed due to theinteraction of the solar wind with the ionosphere, an a bow shock forms ahead of the planet,much closer than in the case of our planet. Solar radiation ionizes Mars upper atmosphere andlater, due to the dynamical interaction between the solar wind and the newly ionized material,some ions are swept away from the planet, i.e. picked up into the solar flow. These ionsform ring-beam distributions in velocity space making the plasma unstable to the generationof ion cyclotron waves that have been previously reported. In this work use an MHD code tosimulate the solar wind interaction with Mars under various IMF geometries. We also injecttest particles, follow their trajectories, and build velocity distributions to sudy possible wavegrowth due to these distributions.