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[38.19] Study of the Solar Wind Interaction with Comet 19P/Borrelly

Y. Jia, K. C. Hansen, M. R. Combi, T. I. Gombosi (U. Michigan), F. Crary (U. Colorado), D. T. Young (SwRI)

A new study of the solar wind-comet Borrelly interaction is provided using a three-dimensional MHD model (BATS-R-US). A point implicit solver and a block-adaptive mesh refinement method allow us to simulate the physics on parallel computers. The simulation starts four million kilometers sunward of the nucleus, which is a hundred times the cometary bowshock distance, to make sure the entire mass loading volume is included. The smallest computational cells are thirty meters across in the vicinity of the nucleus.

Inside the magnetic cavity, multiple jet configurations as well as gas production rates have been explored in order to give the best fit to the Deep Space 1 PEPE measurements, i.e., the velocity and density profile along the space craft trajectory, bowshock position and the offset density peak. In addition, ion-neutral interactions are included in the model and the effects of variable solar wind conditions are discussed.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: yingdong@engin.umich.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #4
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.