This paper presents the state of the art of kinetic modeling techniques for simulating plasma kinetic dynamics in magnetospheres. We describe the critical numerical techniques for enabling large-scale kinetic simulations of magnetospheres: parameter scaling, implicit Particle-in-Cell schemes, and fluid-kinetic coupling. We show an application of these techniques to study particle acceleration and heating in asymmetric magnetic reconnection in the Ganymede magnetosphere.
The planet Mercury possesses a small but highly dynamic magnetosphere in which the role and dynamics of electrons are still largely unknown. We aim at modeling the global dynamics of solar wind electrons impinging on Mercury's magnetosphere. Particular relevance is given to local acceleration processes and the global circulation patterns. The goals of this work are pursued by means of three-dimensional, fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations modeling the interaction of the solar wind with the Hermean magnetosphere. This method allows a self-consistent representation of the plasma dynamics …
Multiscale phenomena are ubiquitous in nature as well in laboratories. A broad range of interacting space and time scales determines the dynamics of many systems which are inherently multiscale. In most research disciplines multiscale phenomena are not only prominent, but also they have often played the dominant role. In the solar wind - magnetosphere interaction, multiscale features coexist along with the global or coherent features. Underlying these phenomena are the mathematical and theoretical approaches such as phase transitions, turbulence, self-organization, fractional kinetics, percola…
Interactions between plasma particles and electromagnetic waves play a crucial role in the dynamics and regulation of the state of space environments. From plasma physics theory, the characteristics of the waves and their interactions with the plasma strongly depend on the composition of the plasma, among other factors. In the case of the Earth's magnetosphere, the plasma is usually composed by electrons, protons, O+, and He+ ions, all with their particular properties and characteristics. Here, using plasma parameters relevant for the inner magnetosphere we study the dispersion properties of K…
One of the most striking properties of Kinetic Alfvén Waves (KAW) is that, unlike the also Alfvénic Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves, these waves are right-hand polarized in the plasma frame. In particular, this signature property is key for the identification of KAW from in situ measurements of plasma waves. From the theoretical point of view, both the dispersion relation and the polarization of KAW has been mostly studied in proton-electron plasmas. However, most astrophysical and space plasmas are multi-species, and therefore in these systems the dispersion properties of the KAW m…
The magnetosphere of Mercury is studied using an implicit full particle in cell simulation (PIC). We use a hybrid simulation where ions are full particles and electrons are considered as a fluid to start a full PIC simulation where electrons are also particles and follow their distribution function. This approach allows us to estimate the changes introduced by the electron kinetic physics. We find that the overall macroscopic state of the magnetosphere of Mercury is little affected but several physical processes are significantly modified in the full PIC simulation: the foreshock region is mor…
Solar energetic ions are a known hazard to both spacecraft electronics and to manned space flights in interplanetary space missions that extend over a long period of time. A dipole-like magnetic field and a plasma source, forming a mini magnetosphere, are being tested in the laboratory as means of protection against such hazards. We investigate, via particle-in-cell hybrid simulations, using kinetic ions and fluid electrons, the characteristics of the mini magnetospheres. Our results, for parameters identical to the experimental conditions, reveal the formation of a mini-magnetosphere, whose f…
We use a nonstationary generalization of the higher-order structure function technique to investigate statistical properties of the magnetic field fluctuations recorded by MESSENGER spacecraft during its first flyby (01/14/2008) through the near Mercury's space environment, with the emphasis on key boundary regions participating in the solar wind -- magnetosphere interaction. Our analysis shows, for the first time, that kinetic-scale fluctuations play a significant role in the Mercury's magnetosphere up to the largest resolvable time scale ~20 s imposed by the signal nonstationarity, suggestin…
Cold (eV) ions of ionospheric origin are a major source of magnetospheric plasma. These ions dominate the number density for most of the volume of the magnetosphere, most of the time. This affects large-scale physics, including plasma temperature and pressure (and thus instability thresholds) and the Alfvén velocity (and thus energy transport with waves and the magnetic reconnection rate). This also affects small-scale kinetic plasma physics, including wave generation and the Hall physics of reconnection. Ions escaping from the ionosphere also represent a significant fraction of the mass outfl…
Particle distributions in weakly collisional environments such as the magnetosphere have been observed to show deviations from the Maxwellian distribution. These can often be reproduced in kinetic simulations, but fluid models, which are used in global simulations of the magnetosphere, do not necessarily capture any of this. We apply the maximum entropy fluid closure of Levermore, which leads to well posed moment equations, to reconstruct particle distributions from a kinetic simulation in a reconnection region. Our results show that without information other than the moments, the model can re…
We studied the role of electron physics in 3D two-fluid 10-moment simulation of the Ganymede's magnetosphere. The model captures non-ideal physics like the Hall effect, the electron inertia, and anisotropic, non-gyrotropic pressure effects. A series of analyses were carried out: 1) The resulting magnetic field topology and electron and ion convection patterns were investigated. The magnetic fields were shown to agree reasonably well with in-situ measurements by the Galileo satellite. 2) The physics of collisionless magnetic reconnection were carefully examined in terms of the current sheet for…
The hybrid kinetic model supports comprehensive simulation of the interaction between different spatial and energetic elements of the Europa moon-magnetosphere system with respect a to variable upstream magnetic field and flux or density distributions of plasma and energetic ions, electrons, and neutral atoms. This capability is critical for improving the interpretation of the existing Europa flyby measurements from the Galileo Orbiter mission, and for planning flyby and orbital measurements (including the surface and atmospheric compositions) for future missions. The simulations are based on …
During the recovery phase of a magnetic storm, fluxes of relativistic ($>1$ MeV) electrons in the inner magnetosphere ($3\le L \le 6$) increase to beyond pre-storm levels, reaching a peak about 4 days after the initiation of the storm. In order to account for the generation of these "killer electrons", a model is presented primarily based on stochastic acceleration of electrons by enhanced whistler-mode chorus. In terms of a quasi-linear formulation, a kinetic (Fokker-Planck) equation for the electron energy distribution is derived, comprising an energy diffusion coefficient based on gyroreson…
"Moon-magnetosphere interaction" stands for the interaction of magnetospheric plasma with an orbiting moon. Observations and modeling of moon-magnetosphere interaction is a highly interesting area of space physics because it helps to better understand the basic physics of plasma flows in the universe and it provides geophysical information about the interior of the moons. Moon-magnetosphere interaction is caused by the flow of magnetospheric plasma relative to the orbital motions of the moons. The relative velocity is usually slower than the Alfvén velocity of the plasma around the moons. Thus…
We use the MHD with embedded particle-in-cell model (MHD-EPIC) to study the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) dayside kinetic processes challenge event at 01:50-03:00 UT on 2015-11-18, when the magnetosphere was driven by a steady southward IMF. In the MHD-EPIC simulation, the dayside magnetopause is covered by a PIC code so that the dayside reconnection is properly handled. We compare the magnetic fields and the plasma profiles of the magnetopause crossing with the MMS3 spacecraft observations. Most variables match the observations well in the magnetosphere, in the magnetosheath, and also d…
We present a systematic attempt to study magnetic null points and the associated magnetic energy conversion in kinetic Particle-in-Cell simulations of various plasma configurations. We address three-dimensional simulations performed with the semi-implicit kinetic electromagnetic code iPic3D in different setups: variations of a Harris current sheet, dipolar and quadrupolar magnetospheres interacting with the solar wind; and a relaxing turbulent configuration with multiple null points. Spiral nulls are more likely created in space plasmas: in all our simulations except lunar magnetic anomaly and…
Electrostatic structures have been observed in many regions of space plasmas, including the solar wind, the magnetosphere, the auroral acceleration region. One possible theoretical description of some of these structures is the concept of Bernstein-Greene-Kruskal (BGK) modes, which are exact nonlinear steady-state solutions of the Vlasov-Poisson system of equations in collisionless kinetic theory. We generalize exact solutions of two-dimensional BGK modes in a magnetized plasma with finite magnetic field strength [Ng, Bhattacharjee, and Skiff, Phys. Plasmas {\bf13}, 055903 (2006)] to cases wit…
The Jovian magnetosphere is complicated by the multiple plasma sources and ion species present within it, as well as fast rotation with its dipole axis titled from its rotational axis. To date global models of Jovian have neglected the presence of the different ion species as well as the tilted nature of the dipole axis. This paper reports the results of the first multi-fluid global modeling of these effects in a single self-consistent study for processes occurring in the outer magnetosphere. In the inner magnetosphere the model densities are shown to be comparable to observed densities with m…
In the absence of efficient collisions, deviations from thermal equilibrium of plasma particle distributions are controlled by the self-generated instabilities. The whistler instability is a notorious example, usually responsible for the regulation of electron temperature anisotropy $A = T_{\perp}/T_\parallel>$ (with $\perp, \parallel$ respective to the magnetic field direction) observed in space plasmas, e.g., solar wind and planetary magnetospheres. Suprathermal electrons present in these environments change the plasma dispersion and stability properties, with expected consequences on the ki…
Current disruption (CD) and the related kinetic instabilities in the near-Earth magnetosphere represent physical mechanisms which can trigger multi-scale substorm activity including global reorganizations of the magnetosphere. Lui et al. (2008) proposed a CD scenario in which the kinetic scale linear modes grow and reach the typical dipolarization scales through an inverse cascade. The experimental verification of the inverse nonlinear cascade is based on wavelet analysis. In this paper the Hilbert-Huang transform is used which is suitable for nonlinear systems and allows to reconstruct the ti…
The Earth's magnetosphere represents a natural plasma laboratory that allows us to study the behavior of particle distribution functions in the absence of Coulomb collisions, typically described by the Kappa distributions. We have investigated the properties of these functions for ions and electrons in different magnetospheric regions, thereby making it possible to reveal the $κ$-parameters for a wide range of plasma beta ($β$) values (from $10^{-3}$ to $10^{2}$). This was done using simultaneous ion and electron measurements from the five Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions dur…
Plasmas in Earth's outer magnetosphere, magnetosheath, and solar wind are essentially collisionless. This means particle distributions are not typically in thermodynamic equilibrium and deviate significantly from Maxwellian distributions. The deviations of these distributions can be further enhanced by plasma processes, such as shocks, turbulence, and magnetic reconnection. Such distributions can be unstable to a wide variety of kinetic plasma instabilities, which in turn modify the electron distributions. In this paper the deviations of the observed electron distributions from a bi-Maxwellian…
After 9 years in the Saturn system, the Cassini spacecraft finally observed Titan in the supersonic solar wind. These unique observations reveal that Titan interaction with the solar wind is in many ways similar to un-magnetized planets Mars and Venus in spite of the differences in the properties of the solar plasma in the outer solar system. In particular, Cassini detected a collisionless, supercritical bow shock and a well-defined induced magnetosphere filled with mass-loaded interplanetary magnetic field lines, which drape around Titan ionosphere. Although the flyby altitude may not allow t…
Plasma Mixing Driven by the Collisionless Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability: Insights from fully kinetic simulation and density-based diagnostics
KU Leuven（荷语鲁汶大学）；Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy（比利时皇家空间空气动力学研究所）；University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；National Research Council, CNR-ISTP（国家研究委员会等离子体科学与技术研究所）；Observatoire Côte d’Azur, Université Côte d’Azur（蔚蓝海岸天文台，蔚蓝海岸大学）；LPC2E, CNRS, Université d’Orléans（奥尔良大学CNRS LPC2E实验室）
THEMIS multi-point observation of the plasma and magnetic fields, conducted simultaneously in the dayside magnetosheath and magnetosphere, were used to collect 646 large-scale magnetosheath plasma jets interacting with the magnetopause. The jets were identified as dense and fast streams of the magnetosheath plasma whose energy density is higher than that of the upstream solar wind. The jet interaction with the magnetopause was revealed from sudden inward motion of the magnetopause and an enhancement in the geomagnetic field. The penetration was determined as appearance of the magnetosheath pla…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in solar system and astrophysical plasmas, through which stored magnetic energy associated with current sheets is converted into thermal, kinetic and wave energy. Magnetic reconnection is also thought to be a key process involved in shedding internally produced plasma from the giant magnetospheres at Jupiter and Saturn through topological reconfiguration of the magnetic field. The region where magnetic fields reconnect is known as the diffusion region and in this letter we report on the first encounter of the Cassini spacecraft with a diffusion re…
Kinetic particle-in-cell simulations are used to identify signatures of the electron diffusion region (EDR) and its surroundings during asymmetric magnetic reconnection. A "shoulder" in the sunward pointing normal electric field (EN > 0) at the reconnection magnetic field reversal is a good indicator of the EDR, and is caused by magnetosheath electron meandering orbits in the vicinity of the x-line. Earthward of the X-line, electrons accelerated by EN form strong currents and crescent-shaped distribution functions in the plane perpendicular to B. Just downstream of the X-line, parallel electri…
During periods of strong geomagnetic activity, intense currents flow from the magnetosphere into the high-latitude E-region ionosphere along geomagnetic field lines, B. In this region, collisions between the plasma and neutral molecules allow currents to flow across B, enabling the entire magnetosphere-ionosphere current system to close. These same currents cause strong DC electric fields in the E-region ionosphere where they drive plasma instabilities, including the Farley-Buneman instability (FBI). These instabilities give rise to small-scale plasma turbulence that modifies the large-scale i…
Here, we present a case study of THEMIS and ground-based observations on the dayside magnetopause, and geomagnetic field perturbations related to the interaction of an interplanetary directional discontinuity (DD), as observed by ACE, within the magnetosphere on 16 June 2007. The interaction resulted in a large-scale local magnetopause distortion of an 'expansion-compression-expansion' (ECE) sequence that lasted for 15 min. The compression was caused by a very dense, cold, and fast high-beta magnetosheath plasma flow, a so-called plasma jet, whose kinetic energy was approximately three times h…
We perform a three-dimensional (3D) global simulation of Earth's magnetosphere with kinetic reconnection physics to study the flux transfer events (FTEs) and dayside magnetic reconnection with the recently developed magnetohydrodynamics with embedded particle-in-cell model (MHD-EPIC). During the one-hour long simulation, the FTEs are generated quasi-periodically near the subsolar point and move toward the poles. We find the magnetic field signature of FTEs at their early formation stage is similar to a `crater FTE', which is characterized by a magnetic field strength dip at the FTE center. Aft…
