Precipitation of Energetic Neutral Atoms and Induced Non-Thermal Escape Fluxes from the Martian Atmosphere

TL;DR

This study uses advanced Monte Carlo simulations with a new collisional database to analyze how energetic neutral atoms precipitate into Mars' atmosphere, leading to non-thermal escape fluxes and atmospheric heating.

Contribution

It introduces a new collisional database with accurate energy-angular cross sections and applies 3D Monte Carlo simulations to quantify non-thermal escape fluxes and atmospheric heating on Mars.

Findings

Quantified non-thermal escape fluxes of atmospheric atoms.

Compared effects of different cross section models on energy deposition.

Provided detailed altitude profiles of secondary hot atoms and molecules.

Abstract

The precipitation of energetic neutral atoms, produced through charge exchange collisions between solar wind ions and thermal atmospheric gases, is investigated for the Martian atmosphere. Connections between parameters of precipitating fast ions and resulting escape fluxes, altitude-dependent energy distributions of fast atoms and their coefficients of reflection from the Mars atmosphere, are established using accurate cross sections in Monte Carlo simulations. Distributions of secondary hot atoms and molecules, induced by precipitating particles, have been obtained and applied for computations of the non-thermal escape fluxes. A new collisional database on accurate energy-angular dependent cross sections, required for description of the energy-momentum transfer in collisions of precipitating particles and production of non-thermal atmospheric atoms and molecules, is reported with analytic fitting equations. 3D Monte Carlo simulations with accurate energy-angular dependent cross sections have been carried out to track large ensembles of energetic atoms in a time-dependent manner as they propagate into the Martian atmosphere and transfer their energy to the ambient atoms and molecules. Results of the Monte Carlo simulations on the energy-deposition altitude profiles, reflection coefficients, and time-dependent atmospheric heating, obtained for the isotropic hard sphere and anisotropic quantum cross sections, are compared. Atmospheric heating rates, thermalization depths, altitude profiles of production rates, energy distributions of secondary hot atoms and molecules, and induced escape fluxes have been determined.