A new 3D multi-fluid dust model: a study of the effects of activity and nucleus rotation on the dust grains' behavior in the cometary environment
Abstract
Cometary dust observations may deepen our understanding of the role of dust in the formation of comets and in altering the cometary environment. Models including dust grains are in demand to interpret observations and test hypotheses. Several existing models have taken into account the gas-dust interaction, varying sizes of dust grains and the cometary gravitational force. In this work, we develop a multi-fluid dust model based on BATS-R-US in the University of Michigan's Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF). This model not only incorporates key features of previous dust models, but also has the capability of simulating time-dependent phenomena. Since the model is running in the rotating comet reference frame with a real shaped nucleus in the computational domain, the fictitious centrifugal and Coriolis forces are included. The boundary condition on the nucleus surface can be set according to the distribution of activity and the solar illumination. The Sun, which drives sublimation and the radiation pressure force, revolves around the comet in this frame. A newly developed numerical mesh is also used to resolve the real shaped nucleus in the center and to facilitate prescription of the outer boundary conditions that accommodate the rotating frame. The inner part of the grid is a box composed of Cartesian cells and the outer surface is a smooth sphere, with stretched cells filled in between the box and the sphere. The effects of the rotating nucleus and the activity region on the surface are discussed and preliminary results are presented. This work has been partially supported by grant NNX14AG84G from the NASA Planetary Atmospheres Program, and US Rosetta contracts JPL #1266313, JPL #1266314 and JPL #1286489.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.P43A2099S
- Keywords:
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- 6015 Dust;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: COMETS AND SMALL BODIESDE: 6020 Ices;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: COMETS AND SMALL BODIESDE: 6050 Plasma and MHD instabilities;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: COMETS AND SMALL BODIESDE: 6055 Surfaces;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: COMETS AND SMALL BODIES