Ultra-low frequency waves in the ion foreshock of Mercury: A global hybrid modeling study

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2020-01-01

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

4147-4161

Series

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 491, issue 3

Abstract

We study the solar wind interaction with Mercury using a global three-dimensional hybrid model. In the analysed simulation run, we find a well-developed, dynamic Hermean ion foreshock ahead of the quasi-parallel bow shock under upstream solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions corresponding to the orbital perihelion of the planet. A portion of the incident solar wind ion flux is scattered back upstream near the quasi-parallel bow shock including both major solar wind ion species, protons and alphas. The scattered particles form the Hermean suprathermal foreshock ion population. A significant part of the suprathermal population is backstreaming with a velocity component towards the Sun in the near-foreshock at the planetocentric distance of few planetary radii in the plane of the IMF. The ion foreshock is associated with large-scale, oblique fast magnetosonic waves in the ultra-low-frequency (ULF) range convecting downstream with the solar wind. The ULF wave period is about 5 s in the analysed upstream condition case at Mercury, which corresponds to the 30-s foreshock waves at Earth when scaled by the IMF magnitude.

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Keywords

magnetic fields, plasmas, waves, solar wind, planet-star interactions

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Citation

Järvinen, R, Alho, M, Kallio, E & Pulkkinen, T 2020, ' Ultra-low frequency waves in the ion foreshock of Mercury: A global hybrid modeling study ', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 491, no. 3, pp. 4147-4161 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3257