Titanʹs corona: The contribution of exothermic chemistry

The contribution of exothermic ion and neutral chemistry to Titanʹs corona is studied. The production rates for fast neutrals N2, CH4, H, H2, 3CH2, CH3, C2H4, C2H5, C2H6, N(4S), NH, and HCN are determined using a coupled ion and neutral model of Titanʹs upper atmosphere. After production, the formation of the suprathermal particles is modeled using a two-stream simulation, as they travel simultaneously through a thermal mixture of N2, CH4, and H2. The resulting suprathermal fluxes, hot density profiles, and energy distributions are compared to the N2 and CH4 INMS exospheric data presented in [De La Haye, V., Waite Jr., J.H., Johnson, R.E., Yelle, R.V., Cravens, T.E., Luhmann, J.G., Kasprzak, W.T., Gell, D.A., Magee, B., Leblanc, F., Michael, M., Jurac, S., Robertson, I.P., 2007. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JA012222, in press], and are found insufficient for producing the suprathermal populations measured. Global losses of nitrogen atoms and carbon atoms in all forms due to exothermic chemistry are estimated to be 8.3 × 10 24   N s −1 and 7.2 × 10 24   C s −1 .