Current Sheets with Multicomponent Plasma in Magnetospheres of Planets of the Solar System
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ent Sheets with Multicomponent Plasma in Magnetospheres of Planets of the Solar System V. I. Domrina, Kh. V. Malovaa, b, *, **, V. Yu. Popovb, c, d, E. E. Grigorenkob, and A. A. Petrukovichb aSkobeltsyn
Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991 Russia Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117997 Russia c Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991 Russia dNational Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, 101000 Russia *e-mail: [email protected] **e-mail: [email protected] bSpace
Received February 25, 2020; revised February 25, 2020; accepted May 29, 2020
Abstract—A self-consistent hybrid model of a thin current sheet (TCS) with a thickness of the order of several ion gyroradii is proposed that takes into account the multicomponent nature of collisionless space plasma. Several plasma components can be present in the tails of the magnetospheres of terrestrial planets (for example, the Earth, Mercury, Mars, and Venus). Variations in the current sheet (CS) structure in magnetospheric plasma in the presence of heavy oxygen ions with different characteristics are analyzed. It is shown that high relative concentrations of oxygen ions, as well as their relatively high temperatures and drift velocities, lead to significant thickening of CS and the formation of an additional embedded scale. In this case, on the profiles of the main characteristics—current density and magnetic field—symmetric breaks appear, which correspond to a sharp change in the gradients of variation in values. A comparison is performed and a qualitative agreement is shown between the simulation results and observational data in the tail of the Martian magnetosphere. DOI: 10.1134/S0010952520060039
1. INTRODUCTION As a result of the interaction of the solar wind (SW)—a supersonic flow of solar plasma with the frozen-in interplanetary magnetic field (IMF)—with planets and their magnetic fields, large-scale cavities are formed around them, in which the planet’s own magnetic fields dominate [1]. These cavities are called “magnetospheres,” and their parts elongated in the direction from the Sun are called “tails.” Examples of magnetospheres of some planets located near the Sun are shown in Fig. 1. The dimensions of magnetospheres are determined by the magnitudes of the magnetic fields of the planets. Mars and Venus have no magnetic fields, and their magnetospheres are induced (Fig. 1a). One of the smallest planets in the solar system, Mercury, has its own small magnetic field, due to which it forms its own small magnetosphere (Fig. 1b). The characteristic dimensions of the magnetospheres of Venus, Mars, and Mercury are several radii of the planets. In contrast, the Earth’s magnetic field is rather strong. It supports a magnetosphere that is large in size and much more complex, reaching around several dozen RE in diameter (RE ≈ 6400 km is the Earth’s radius) and more than 100RE in the direction along the tail (Fig. 1c). Here, the solar magnetospheric coordinate system (GSM) is al
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