Ten-Moment Multifluid Modeling of the Dynamic Magnetotails of Mercury, Earth, Uranus and Ganymede

We have developed a three-dimensional ten-moment multifluid model and applied it to explore the dynamic magnetotails of Mercury, Earth, Uranus and Ganymede in the process of plasma-magnetosphere interactions. This novel fluid model self-consistently solves the continuity, momentum and pressure tensor equations of each species, together with the full Maxwell equations. As a result, non-ideal effects including the Hall effect, inertia, and tensorial pressures are self-consistently embedded without the need for explicitly solving a generalized Ohm's law as MHD.

This model has been well-validated through data-model comparison with spacecraft data from, e.g., MESSENGER and Galileo. More importantly, this new model can reproduce observations beyond MHD including dawn-dusk asymmetries in planetary magnetotails and field-aligned currents. The new model is also essential for capturing the detailed electron physics associated with collisionless magnetic reconnection (and the resultant flux ropes) in planetary magnetotails. For Mercury and Ganymede, the induction response arising from the electromagnetically-coupled interior plays an important role in manipulating the external magnetic configuration during plasma-magnetosphere interactions, especially under extreme drivers. We will present the simulation results together with observational data and highlight the aforementioned features from the Gkeyll multi-moment multifluid model developed at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and Princeton University.