Test particle model of pickup ions at comet Halley
A test particle treatment is used to investigate some of the details of the pickup cometary ions observed at comet Halley. The effects of the large-scale magnetic and motional electric fields, as described by an MHD model of the comet, produce the characteristic V shape seen in Giotto observations in simulated energy-time spectrograms. It is demonstrated that scattering produced by the addition of magnetic field fluctuations can obscure the tendency of the large-scale field to deflect energetic ions picked up in the outer coma from the tail axis. The fact that the V is so clearly observed in the Giotto spectrogram thus suggests that although scattering must be invoked to explain the isotropic pitch angle distributions and highest energy ions, it does not have a major effect on the overall pickup ion spectrum. copyright American Geophysical Union 1988
- Research Organization:
- Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles
- OSTI ID:
- 6952820
- Journal Information:
- J. Geophys. Res.; (United States), Vol. 93:A7
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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