Plasma-gas interactions in planetary atmospheres and their relevance for the terrestrial hydrogen budget
Item
Title (Dublin Core)
en-US
Plasma-gas interactions in planetary atmospheres and their relevance for the terrestrial hydrogen budget
Description (Dublin Core)
en-US
The relevance of charge exchange processes for the evaporation of neutral gases out of planetary gravitational fields has been known for quite a long time. For the planetary escape, however, collisions of the escaping constituent with both neutral and ionized atmospheric species operate in building up the escape flux. For the Earth, hydrogen collisions with O-atoms and O+- and H+- ions lead to about comparable contributions to the hydrogen escape at heights below 800 km, whereas at larger heights only charge exchange collisions need to be considered. In the present work, the lower region is therefore described by particle and energy flux conservation concepts, whereas in the upper region free-flight kinetic concepts are used. We give solutions for the height profiles of the hydrogen density, temperature and escape flux. The inclusion of charge exchange collisions increases the scale height, and consequently a smaller decrease of the hydrogen density is given. The hydrogen temperature, however, is reduced by including this effect. The charge exchange processes contribute about 70% to the total hydrogen escape which is of the order of a few 107 atoms/cm2 s at the plasma pause.
ARK: https://n2t.net/ark:/88439/y085188
Permalink: https://geophysicsjournal.com/article/14
ARK: https://n2t.net/ark:/88439/y085188
Permalink: https://geophysicsjournal.com/article/14
Creator (Dublin Core)
Nass , H.U.
Fahr, H.J.
Subject (Dublin Core)
en-US
Plasma-gas interactions
en-US
Charge exchange collisions
en-US
Escape
en-US
Space
Publisher (Dublin Core)
en-US
Journal of Geophysics
Date (Dublin Core)
1984-12-13
Type (Dublin Core)
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
en-US
Peer-reviewed Article
Format (Dublin Core)
application/pdf
Identifier (Dublin Core)
https://journal.geophysicsjournal.com/JofG/article/view/14
Source (Dublin Core)
en-US
Journal of Geophysics; Vol 56 No 1 (1985): Journal of Geophysics; 34-46
2643-2986
2643-9271
Language (Dublin Core)
eng
Relation (Dublin Core)
https://journal.geophysicsjournal.com/JofG/article/view/14/9