Time-dependent global MHD simulations of Jupiter's magnetosphere with a realistic internal field model
Abstract
Jupiter's internal field, which has strong higher-order components, together with the fast rotation of the planet introduces a periodic modulation ("wobbling") to the magnetosphere which has been observed in the crossing of the Jovian current sheet by in-situ spacecraft. Our understanding of the current sheet is largely based on in-situ data that has limited spatial coverage and empirical models, which consider two main factors in fitting the magnetic field observations. Firstly, it is known that information about the changing magnetic field would propagate at a finite speed through the inhomogeneous, ambient plasma environment. Secondly, it was shown that the inclusion of current sheet hinging, which limits the latitudinal excursions of the current sheet beyond a certain distance, improves the fit to observations. In particular, better fits were obtained by assuming that the degree of hinging changes along the Sun-Jupiter line, rather than radial distance. This hints that current sheet hinging is likely due to solar-wind influence on the outer magnetosphere.
In this work, we incorporate a non-axisymmetric internal field model into our Jupiter global simulation to understand the contribution of the two factors described above in a self-consistent manner. Our simulation includes the mass loading due to Io in the form of source and loss terms in the MHD equations and solves the semi-relativistic MHD equations using the BATSRUS code (Sarkango et al., 2019). To understand how solar wind forcing influences the hinging of the current sheet, we drive our simulations with time-dependent solar wind input and systematically analyze the response of the current sheet to varying solar wind conditions.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMSM0540005S
- Keywords:
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- 6025 Interactions with solar wind plasma and fields;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: COMETS AND SMALL BODIES;
- 5706 Aurorae;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: FLUID PLANETS;
- 5729 Ionospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: FLUID PLANETS;
- 5737 Magnetospheres;
- PLANETARY SCIENCES: FLUID PLANETS