|
|||||
|
|
Titan's corona: The contribution of exothermic chemistry |
|
| Authors: | V De La Haye TE Cravens RE Johnson IP Robertson |
| Institution: | a Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78228, USA b Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA c AOSS Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA d Astronomy Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA e Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Jussieu, 75252 Paris, France |
| 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  and  . |
| Keywords: | Titan atmospheres Atmospheres chemistry Photochemistry Collisional physics |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ | |