University of Kansas Cassini Studies

DRAFT Ion Trajectories in Saturn's Magnetosphere Near Titan S. A. Ledvina, T. E. Cravens, A. Salman, and K. Kecskemety

The trajectory for each ion was found by numerically solving the equation of motion:

where m is the mass, q is the charge, v is the velocity of the ion, and B is the magnetic field from the MHD model. The electric field E was assumed to be the motional electric field.

We examined two categories of N+ ions: ambient ions and pick-up ions. Ambient ions are the ions present in the upstream plasma flow and are started with a velocity of 200 km/s. Pick-up ions are created at rest, with a radial distance of 1.3 RT at various locations around Titan. In addition, each category contained two subcategories, unperturbed plasma flow and perturbed flow. The unperturbed flow neglects the presence of Titan and has uniform fields. The perturbed flow uses the velocity field and the magnetic field from the MHD model.

Next: RESULTS -- ION TRAJECTORIES

References

Return to Ion Trajectories Near Titan Main Abstract and Index Page.
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Last modified February 2, 2004 T. Hunt-Ward tizby@ku.edu