Two-Dimensional Hybrid Particle-In-Cell Simulation of Solar Wind Plasma Flow around Magnetic Sail

Abstract

Solar wind plasma flow with interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and the thrust of the magnetic sail are examined by time-dependent, two-dimensional, X-Y Cartesian, hybrid particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The hybrid-PIC simulation model is that the ions are treated kinetically as particles and the electrons are modeled as an inertia-less (mass-less) fluid. In this simulation, the real solar wind parameters around a near-earth orbit are used. The direction and strength of IMF are set to +Y direction which is perpendicular to the solar wind flow (+X direction) and 3 nT. Expressed in r_L/L (the ratio of an ion Larmor radius r_L of the solar wind at the magnetopause to a representative length of magnetic field L), when r_L/L = 0.1 (in the case of MHD scale), magnetopause is formed accompanied by a fast magnetosonic bow shock. When r_L/L = 2.0 (in the case of ion inertial scale), the electromagnetic interaction results in the formation of a magnetosphere with standing whistler waves. The drag coefficients, which is the thrust normalized by the solar wind inertial force, of both scales with IMF tend to increase compared with the cases without IMF because the incoming IMF accompanied by the solar wind piles up at upstream of the spacecraft. Also, on the ion inertial scale, the generation mechanism of Whistler wave and the influence of that on the thrust performance are revealed.