Menura: a code for simulating the interaction between a turbulent solar wind and solar system bodies

Etienne Behar (1) , Shahab Fatemi , Pierre Henri (1, 2) , Mats Holmström (1)

1 LAGRANGE - Joseph Louis LAGRANGE
2 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace

Despite the close relationship between planetary science and plasma physics, few advanced numerical tools allow bridging the two topics. The code Menura proposes a breakthrough towards the self-consistent modelling of these overlapping fields, in a novel two-step approach allowing for the global simulation of the interaction between a fully turbulent solar wind and various bodies of the solar system. This article introduces the new code and its two-step global algorithm, illustrated by a first example: the interaction between a turbulent solar wind and a comet.

Keywords: Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics; Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics; Physics - Computational Physics; Physics - Plasma Physics; Physics - Space Physics

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Etienne Behar, Shahab Fatemi, Pierre Henri, Mats Holmström. Menura: a code for simulating the interaction between a turbulent solar wind and solar system bodies. Annales Geophysicae, 2022, 40, pp.281-297. ⟨10.5194/angeo-40-281-2022⟩. ⟨insu-03685364⟩