Titan's corona: The contribution of exothermic chemistry
Johnson, R. E.; Waite, J. H.; Cravens, T. E.; Robertson, I. P.; Lebonnois, S.; Nagy, A. F.; De La Haye, V.
United States, France
Abstract
The contribution of exothermic ion and neutral chemistry to Titan's corona is studied. The production rates for fast neutrals N 2, CH 4, H, H 2, 3CH 2, CH 3, C 2H 4, C 2H 5, C 2H 6, N( 4S), NH, and HCN are determined using a coupled ion and neutral model of Titan's upper atmosphere. After production, the formation of the suprathermal particles is modeled using a two-stream simulation, as they travel simultaneously through a thermal mixture of N 2, CH 4, and H 2. The resulting suprathermal fluxes, hot density profiles, and energy distributions are compared to the N 2 and CH 4 INMS exospheric data presented in [De La Haye, V., Waite Jr., J.H., Johnson, R.E., Yelle, R.V., Cravens, T.E., Luhmann, J.G., Kasprzak, W.T., Gell, D.A., Magee, B., Leblanc, F., Michael, M., Jurac, S., Robertson, I.P., 2007. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JA012222, in press], and are found insufficient for producing the suprathermal populations measured. Global losses of nitrogen atoms and carbon atoms in all forms due to exothermic chemistry are estimated to be 8.3×10 Ns and 7.2×10 Cs.