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| Titel |
An estimation for Enceladus' production of nanograins |
| VerfasserIn |
Patrick Meier, Uwe Motschmann, Jürgen Schmidt, Frank Spahn, Thomas Hill, Yaxue Dong, Geraint Jones |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250109895
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-9850.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Enceladus’ plume provides a unique laboratory for dust-plasma interactions. As shown by
measurements of Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) negatively charged nanograins as
well as a small fraction of positively charged ones were detected in Enceladus’
dust plume. However, there are no data of uncharged grains. Thus, the total grain
production rate of Enceladus and its total contribution to Saturn’s E-ring is still
an open issue. Therefore, we present an estimation for uncharged grains as well
as a total grain production rate from an analytical model and simulations in this
work. The analytical model is derived from basic equations of grain charging and
quasi-neutrality. In this model a first estimation for the fraction of uncharged grains
results from negatively and positively charged grains. For more accurate estimations
results from combined dust and plasma simulations are compared with our analytical
ones and CAPS data yielding Enceladus’ total grain production rate and a global
profile of uncharged nanograins in the plume. Allowing for the different time scales
for dust and plasma dynamics the dust simulations of the plume and the plasma
simulations with A.I.K.E.F. for plasma-plume interaction are implemented iteratively. |
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