Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1775214 Icarus 2007 15 Pages PDF
Abstract
The contribution of exothermic ion and neutral chemistry to Titan's corona is studied. The production rates for fast neutrals N2, CH4, H, H2, 3CH2, CH3, C2H4, C2H5, C2H6, N(4S), NH, and HCN are determined using a coupled ion and neutral model of Titan's upper atmosphere. After production, the formation of the suprathermal particles is modeled using a two-stream simulation, as they travel simultaneously through a thermal mixture of N2, CH4, and H2. The resulting suprathermal fluxes, hot density profiles, and energy distributions are compared to the N2 and CH4 INMS exospheric data presented in [De La Haye, V., Waite Jr., J.H., Johnson, R.E., Yelle, R.V., Cravens, T.E., Luhmann, J.G., Kasprzak, W.T., Gell, D.A., Magee, B., Leblanc, F., Michael, M., Jurac, S., Robertson, I.P., 2007. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JA012222, in press], and are found insufficient for producing the suprathermal populations measured. Global losses of nitrogen atoms and carbon atoms in all forms due to exothermic chemistry are estimated to be 8.3×1024Ns−1 and 7.2×1024Cs−1.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Earth and Planetary Sciences Space and Planetary Science
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