Statistical observations of martian 20-30 eV photoelectrons by MAVEN/SWEA

Photoelectron peaks in the 20-30 eV energy range are commonly observed in planetary atmospheres, produced by intense photoionization from solar 30.4 nm photons. At Mars, these photoelectrons are known to escape the planet down its tail (Frahm et al., 2006). Assuming overall charge neutrality, the number of corresponding electrons must be identical to the number of ion charges escaping the planet. Studying the photoelectrons is thus important to understand and quantify the erosion of the martian atmosphere. Moreover, the photoelectrons also play a significant role for the heating and ionization of the atmosphere. The MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft has provided detailed observations of the Martian environment for the last two years thanks to its unique orbital coverage and comprehensive plasma instrument suite. The low periapsis altitudes (down to 125 km altitude) and combined presence of an electron spectrometer (Solar Wind Electron Analyzer, SWEA) and of a magnetometer (MAG) provide a unique opportunity to investigate the source region of the photoelectrons and their transport and escape down the tail. We will present statistical results of an automatic detection of 20-30 eV photoelectrons at Mars, based on a simple algorithm using three levels of confidence. More than 150,000 spectra (each averaged over 30s) revealed clear photoelectron peaks from October 2014 to May 2016. The analysis reveals several interesting features such as: the evolution of the peak shape from their source region to higher altitudes, the influence of the magnetic field topology on photoelectron transport, a clear dusk-dawn asymmetry in agreement with the recently-discovered neutral density asymmetry, the statistical influence of the EUV and solar wind parameters and the location of the photoelectron boundary. These results will also be compared with an electron transport code (Sakai et al., 2015, 2016) to better constrain the photoelectron production and transport.