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Numerical study on the spatial extent of interaction region surrounding comet nucleus—Ion pick-up process

Earth, Planets and Space volume 55, pages 705–711 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

The observations made by Sakigake revealed the asymmetric distribution of the interaction region of Halley’s comet, and the center of the interaction region was shifted toward the post-encounter side on the spacecraft trajectory. Oya (1993) proposed the model that this asymmetric distribution is explained by the field aligned motion of picked up ions. Based on this model, we examined spatial and time scale of field aligned motion of cometary ions in the ion pick-up process by using numerical experiments and the shift of the interaction region is estimated. In the simulation results, it was shown that the braking process of the field aligned motion of picked up ions are understood by the wave particle interaction through the excitation of the MHD wave and pitch angle scattering caused by the turbulent magnetic field, and spatial scale of field aligned motion of cometary ion was estimated to 1.5 × 106 km. This result suggests that observed asymmetrical distribution of the interaction region of the comet is formed by the motion of picked up ions toward the field aligned direction until their merging into the solar wind, as it was proposed by Oya (1993).

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Author notes

  1. Yuto Katoh

    Present address: Radio Science Center for Space and Atmosphere, Kyoto University, 611-0011, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, 980-8578, Japan

    Yuto Katoh, Masahide Iizima & Takayuki Ono

  2. Fukui University of Technology, 910-4272, Japan

    Hiroshi Oya

Authors
  1. Yuto Katoh
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  2. Hiroshi Oya
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  3. Masahide Iizima
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  4. Takayuki Ono
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Correspondence to Yuto Katoh.

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Katoh, Y., Oya, H., Iizima, M. et al. Numerical study on the spatial extent of interaction region surrounding comet nucleus—Ion pick-up process. Earth Planet Sp 55, 705–711 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352477

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/BF03352477

Key words

  • Comet-solar wind interaction
  • ion pick-up
  • ion beam instability
  • hybrid simulation