The Mie representation for Mercury’s magnetic field

Abstract

Abstract The parameterization of the magnetospheric field contribution, generated by currents flowing in the magnetosphere is of major importance for the analysis of Mercury’s internal magnetic field. Using a combination of the Gauss and the Mie representation (toroidal–poloidal decomposition) for the parameterization of the magnetic field enables the analysis of magnetic field data measured in current carrying regions in the vicinity of Mercury. In view of the BepiColombo mission, the magnetic field resulting from the plasma interaction of Mercury with the solar wind is simulated with a hybrid simulation code and the internal Gauss coefficients for the dipole, quadrupole and octupole field are reconstructed from the data, evaluated along the prospective trajectories of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) using Capon’s method. Especially, it turns out that a high-precision determination of Mercury’s octupole field is expectable from the future analysis of the magnetic field data measured by the magnetometer on board MPO. Furthermore, magnetic field data of the MESSENGER mission are analyzed and the reconstructed internal Gauss coefficients are in reasonable agreement with the results from more conventional methods such as the least-square fit.

Keywords

• Mie representation
• Poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields
• Thin shell approximation
• Gauss representation
• Capon’s method