Characteristics of cometary picked‐up ions in a global model of Giacobini‐Zinner

Abstract

Energetic ions observed during the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) spacecraft flyby of comet Giacobini‐Zinner provide information about both the constitution of comets and the plasma physical processes associated with their interaction with the solar wind. In this investigation the details of ion “pickup,” in the limit where small‐scale fluctuations in the plasma and magnetic field are neglected, are modeled by following the motion of a large number of initially cold, heavy (mass 18) ions in a global magnetohydrodynamic model of the local plasma and magnetic field. The results indicate how the background or macroscopic velocity and magnetic field structure of the comet can affect the average spatial and spectral characteristics of the observed cometary ions. These effects, which occur by virtue of forces associated with the compression and the curvature of the magnetic field in the presence of the stagnating plasma flow, can explain the double maxima in the time series of the energetic ion flux observed along the ICE trajectory.