Current sheets with multi-component plasma in planetary magnetospheres

Abstract

<p>The self-consistent hybrid model of a thin current sheet with a thickness about several proton gyroradii in a space plasma is proposed, taking into account multicomponent collisionless space plasma. Several plasma components are often presented in planetary magnetotails (Hermean, Martian, Terrestrial and other ones). Influence of heavy oxygen ions with different properties on current sheet structure is analyzed. It is shown that high relative concentrations of oxygen ions, as well as their relatively high temperatures and flow drift speeds lead to a significant thickening of the sheet and a formation of an additional embedding scale. For some real parameters the profiles of self-consistent current densities and magnetic field have symmetrical jumps of derivatives, i.e. sharp changes of gradients. The comparison is made with observations in the Martian magnetosphere. The qualitative agreement of simulation results with observational data is shown.</p>