Abstract
Abstract. The magnetosheath is defined as the plasma region between the bow shock, where the super-magnetosonic solar wind plasma is decelerated and heated, and the outer boundary of the intrinsic planetary magnetic field, the so-called magnetopause. Based on the Soucek–Escoubet magnetosheath flow model at the Earth, we present an analytical magnetosheath plasma flow model around Mercury. The model can be used to estimate the plasma flow magnitude and direction at any given point in the magnetosheath exclusively on the basis of the plasma parameters of the upstream solar wind. The model serves as a useful tool to trace the magnetosheath plasma along the streamline both in a forward sense (away from the shock) and a backward sense (toward the shock), offering the opportunity of studying the growth or damping rate of a particular wave mode or evolution of turbulence energy spectra along the streamline in view of upcoming arrival of BepiColombo at Mercury.
Highlights
The magnetosphere of a planet constitutes an obstacle to the super-magnetosonic solar wind
An analytical magnetosheath flow model, which has successfully been tested against spacecraft observations at Earth, has been implemented by Soucek and Escoubet (2012)
In the following we use an aberrated Mercury Solar Magnetospheric (MSM) coordinate system. This coordinate system is based on the Mercury Solar Orbital (MSO) coordinate system, but its origin is shifted northward by 479 km from the MSO origin to account for Mercury’s dipole offset and rotated into the solar wind velocity direction
Summary
The magnetosphere of a planet constitutes an obstacle to the super-magnetosonic solar wind. The model solves the gas-dynamic differential equations of an unmagnetized fluid around an obstacle, represented by the magnetosphere It has successfully been tested against in situ spacecraft data (Song et al, 1999; Stahara et al, 1993; Spreiter and Alksne, 1968) and applied to model the magnetospheres of various planets in our solar system (see Stahara, 2002, for a review). An analytical magnetosheath flow model, which has successfully been tested against spacecraft observations at Earth, has been implemented by Soucek and Escoubet (2012) This model is based on the magnetic field model developed by Kobel and Flückiger (1994) and later modified and extended by Génot et al (2011) to obtain a magnetosheath plasma flow model. The aim of this paper is to provide a tool to estimate the plasma flow at a given point of spacecraft observation inside the Hermean magnetosheath on the basis of the solar wind conditions
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