X-ray morphology due to charge-exchange emissions used to study the global structure around Mars

TL;DR

This study uses advanced modeling of charge-exchange induced X-ray emissions to analyze Mars' global structure, providing insights into the exosphere and matching observational data.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive 3D magneto-hydrodynamic model combined with charge-exchange processes to study Martian X-ray emissions, improving agreement with observations.

Findings

Charge-exchange with H₂ and N₂ explains low G-ratio.

X-ray luminosity predicted at 6.55 MW, close to observed 12.8 MW.

Distinct X-ray emission maps reveal bow shock features.

Abstract

Soft x-ray emissions induced by solar wind ions that collide with neutral material in the solar system have been detected around planets, and were proposed as a remote probe for the solar wind interaction with the Martian exosphere. A multi-fluid three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic model is adopted to derive the global distributions of solar wind particles. Spherically symmetric exospheric H, H$_2$, He, O, and CO$_2$ density profiles and a sophisticated hybrid model that includes charge-exchange and proton/neutral excitation processes are used to study the low triplet line ratio $G=\frac{i+f}{r}$ (0.77$\pm$0.58) of O VII and total x-ray luminosity around Mars. We further calculate the emission factor $\alpha$-value with different neutrals over a wide ion abundance and velocity ranges. Our results are in good agreement with those of previous reports. The evolution of the charge stage of solar wind ions shows that sequential recombination due to charge-exchange can be negligible at the interaction region. This only appears below the altitude of 400~km. The anonymous low disk $G$ ratio can be easily explained by the collisional quenching effect at neutral densities higher than 10$^{11}$cm$^{-3}$. However, the quenching contribution is small in Mars' exosphere and only appears below 400~km. Charge-exchange with H$_2$ and N$_2$ is still the most likely reason for this low $G$-ratio. X-ray emissivity maps in collisions with different neutrals differ from each other. A clear bow shock in the collision with all the neutrals is in accordance with previous reports. The resulting total x-ray luminosity of 6.55~MW shows a better agreement with the XMM-Newton observation of 12.8$\pm$1.4~MW than that of previous predictions.