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M. L. Marconi (The Freshpond Research Institute), W. H. Smyth, M. C. Wong (Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc.)
The interaction of Io's atmosphere with the Io plasma torus gives rise to the Iogenic plasma source. The Iogenic plasma source is highly relevant to a number of other important phenomena in the Jovian system including the structure and outward transport of the plasma torus and a significant number of coupled electrodynamic interactions that have been observed by ground-based, earth-orbiting, and interplanetary spacecraft instruments, to occur between the plasma torus, Io, and Jupiter. In this work we apply a spatially 3-D axisymmetric hybrid fluid/kinetic model (Marconi et al Ap.J. 469,393, 1996) which includes SO2, SO, O, S, O2, and a generic plasma species. Neutral-neutral chemistry is included as well as collisional and chemical interactions with the plasma which is treated as a fast stream of particles impinging on the upper atmosphere of Io. The structure and dynamics of the neutral component of Io's atmosphere, velocity distributions for O and S at the exobase, plasma source rates and neutral escape rates will be presented.