Consequences of negative ions for Titan's plasma interaction

A hybrid particle code has been used to examine how Titan's interaction with Saturn's magnetosphere is affected by the presence of negative ions in Titan's ionosphere. The simulations self-consistently include a version of Titan's ionosphere represented by 8 generic positive ion species, over 40 ion-neutral chemical reactions, ion-neutral collisions and Hall and Pederson conductivities. A model consisting of 6 generic negative ion species is also included. The presence of negative ions is found to alter the conductivity of Titan's ionosphere, changing the loss rates of the ionospheric species and modifying the topology of Titan's ion tail. Citation: Ledvina, S. A., and S. H. Brecht (2012), Consequences of negative ions for Titan's plasma interaction, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L20103, doi:10.1029/2012GL053835.