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Y. J. Kim (Univ.of Michigan), L. Ben Jaffel (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris), J. Clarke (Univ.of Michigan)
The properties of the upper atmosphere of Jupiter have been of much interest with the still unresolved issue of the H Ly-\alpha bulge, superthermal hydrogen, and the recently available high-resolution STIS observation data.
To help understand these questions better, we have performed a theoretical study of Jupiter's upper atmosphere with the reflected solar H Ly-\alpha emission. This uses Ben Jaffel's radiative transfer model that takes into account the curvature effect of the planetary atmosphere, especially near the limb where the plane-parallel approximation breaks down.
The diagnostic outputs from our study are the individual line profiles at specific locations, the line-integrated disk brightness profile, and the progression of different wavelength bands of a line profile across the disk. Their characteristics have been analyzed in a parametric study in relation to the effects of total H column density, frequency redistribution function, observation phase angle and Doppler effect of planetary rotation, etc., and be compared with available observation data. In particular, the observed H Ly-\alpha bulge is simulated with turbulences with varying velocities.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: ykim@engin.umich.edu