The birth and growth of a solar wind cavity around a comet - Rosetta observations

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This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Authors

Date

2017-07-27

Department

Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering

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Mcode

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Language

en

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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 469, issue Supplement 2, pp. S396–S403

Abstract

The Rosetta mission provided detailed observations of the growth of a cavity in the solar wind around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As the comet approached the Sun, the plasma of cometary origin grew enough in density and size to present an obstacle to the solar wind. Our results demonstrate how the initial slight perturbations of the solar wind prefigure the formation of a solar wind cavity, with a particular interest placed on the discontinuity (solar wind cavity boundary) passing over the spacecraft. The slowing down and heating of the solar wind can be followed and understood in terms of single particle motion. We propose a simple geometric illustration that accounts for the observations, and shows how a cometary magnetosphere is seeded from the gradual steepening of an initially slight solar wind perturbation. A perspective is given concerning the difference between the diamagnetic cavity and the solar wind cavity.

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Keywords

acceleration of particles, plasmas, methods: data analysis, techniques: imaging spectroscopy, comets: individual: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

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DOI

10.1093/mnras/stx1871

Citation

Behar, E, Nilsson, H, Alho, M, Goetz, C & Tsurutani, B 2017, 'The birth and growth of a solar wind cavity around a comet - Rosetta observations', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 469, no. Supplement 2, pp. S396–S403. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1871

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201711217685

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[article-cris] Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu / ELEC