Title:
Interaction of Energetic Solar Plasma with the Hermean Magnetosphere during Nominal and ICME Conditions
Interaction of Energetic Solar Plasma with the Hermean Magnetosphere during Nominal and ICME Conditions
Author(s)
Ivanov, Stoyan Ivanov
Advisor(s)
Paty, Carol S.
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Abstract
This dissertation combines work done in modeling plasma interactions in
Mercury's near-space environment with MESSENGER observations to create new tools that can be used to further analyze the interactions between the solar wind and the Hermean magnetosphere and surface. This dissertation details the tools we developed, including a particle tracker, a 3-D linear interpolator and a path-sampling method and covers how they can be used to study the Hermean magnetosphere. The Particle Tracker is used to study the high-energy tail of the solar wind particle population and how it interacts with the Hermean magnetosphere by tracing the particle paths through the electric and magnetic fields generated by the multifluid MHD model. The path-sampling method is used to sample the multifluid MHD simulation output along the path of the MESSENGER probe, allowing us to verify the model accuracy.
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Date Issued
2016-05-23
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Text
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Thesis