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Luhmann & Kozyra 1991
Luhmann, J.G. and Kozyra, J.U. (1991). Dayside pickup oxygen ion precipitation at Venus and Mars: Spatial distributions, energy deposition and consequences. Journal of Geophysical Research 96: doi: 10.1029/90JA01753. issn: 0148-0227.

The fluxes and energy spectra of picked-up planetary O+ ions incident on the dayside atmospheres of Venus and Mars are calculated using the neutral exosphere models of Nagy and Cravens (1988) and the Spreiter and Stahara (1980) gasdynamic model of the magnetosheath electric and magnetic field. Cold (~10 eV) O+ ions are launched from hemispherical grids of starting points covering the daysides of the planets and their trajectories are followed until they either impact the dayside ''obstacle'' or cross the terminator plane. The impacting, or precipitating, ion fluxes are weighted according to the altitude of the hemispherical starting point grid in a manner consistent with the exosphere density models and the local photoion production rate. Maps of precipitating ion number flux and energy flux show the asymmetrical distribution of dayside energy deposition expected from this source which is unique to the weakly magnetized planets. Although the associated heating of the atmosphere and ionosphere is found to be negligible compared to that from the usual sources, backscattered or sputtered neutral oxygen atoms are produced at energies exceeding that needed for escape from the gravitational fields of both planets. These neutral ''winds,'' driven by pickup ion precipitation, represent a possibly significant loss of atmospheric constituents over the age of the solar system. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1991

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Abstract

Keywords
Planetology, Comets and Small Bodies, Interactions with solar wind plasma and fields, Planetology, Comets and Small Bodies, Atmospheric and ionospheric composition and chemistry, Planetology, Comets and Small Bodies, Origin and evolution, Magnetospheric Physics, Solar wind interactions with unmagnetized bodies
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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