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Mercury’s Field-aligned Currents: Perspectives from Hybrid Simulations
  • +8
  • Zhen Shi,
  • Zhaojin Rong,
  • Shahab Fatemi,
  • Chuanfei Dong,
  • Lucy Klinger,
  • Jiawei Gao,
  • James A. Slavin,
  • Fei He,
  • Yong Wei,
  • Mats Holmström,
  • Stas Barabash
Zhen Shi
Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Zhaojin Rong
Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Shahab Fatemi
Department of Physics at Umeå University
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Chuanfei Dong
Boston University
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Lucy Klinger
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University
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Jiawei Gao
Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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James A. Slavin
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
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Fei He
Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Yong Wei
Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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Mats Holmström
Swedish Institute of Space Physics
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Stas Barabash
Swedish Institute of Space Physics
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Abstract

Previous studies suggested that Mercury’s terrestrial-like magnetosphere could possess Earth-like field-aligned currents (FACs) despite having no ionosphere. However, due to the limited coverage of spacecraft observations, our knowledge about Mercury’s FACs is scarce. Here, to survey the establishment and global pattern of Mercury’s FACs, we used Amitis, a hybrid-kinetic plasma model, to simulate the response of Mercury’s FACs to different interior conductivity profiles and various orientations of the upstream interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). We find that the planet with a conductive interior favors the establishment of FACs, and that IMF orientation controls the pattern of FACs in a similar manner as it does on Earth. But the response of R2-like FACs to IMF orientation differs, thus we cannot simply regard Mercury’s FACs as a scaled-down version of Earth’s. Comparison between our simulations and the previous data analysis suggests that the effective interior conductance to close Mercury’s FACs is ~2.4-3.4 S.
02 Mar 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
04 Mar 2024Published in ESS Open Archive