Localised plasma density enhancements around comet CG/67P
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Pierre Henri
- Function : Correspondent author
Christian Béghin
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 1026804
X. Vallieres
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 735042
- IdHAL : xavier-vallieres
- IdRef : 069398283
Gaëtan Wattieaux
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 735253
- IdHAL : gaetan-wattieaux
- IdRef : 155019546
Raymond Goldstein
- Function : Author
- PersonId : 759463
- ORCID : 0000-0003-2645-0598
Abstract
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, target of the ESA’s Rosetta mission, reached its perihelion at 1.3 AU fromthe Sun in August 2015. Its plasma environment will go on being monitored by the Rosetta Plasma Consortium(RPC) as the distance to the sun increases, until end of mission in September 2016.Combining observations from the different RPC sensors, we investigate localised, strong enhancements of thecometary plasma density over short timescales (- minutes to seconds) observed during the period April 2015- January 2016. These strong plasma density variations (RPC-MIP and RPC-LAP) are likely associated to coldelectrons (RPC-IES) and generally observed during magnetic field rotations (RPC-MAG). The location of suchevents, both in the rotating comet frame and with regard to the magnetic field direction, is discussed to betterconstrain the mechanism at the origin of these localised plasma density enhancements