Description
The numerical simulation is based on the three-dimensional global Jovian magnetosphere model. The MHD equations are solved on a non-orthogonal, curvilinear grid adapted to Jovian magnetospheric problems based on high-resolving power finite-volume techniques for resolving meso-scale structures. In the solar-magnetic (SM) coordinate system, a stretched spherical grid extends to +120 RJ in the sunward direction (XSM), -1300 RJ in the anti-sunward direction, and ±360 RJ in the directions perpendicular to the sun-Jupiter axis (YSM, ZSM directions), with 5123 computational cells which is currently the highest effective resolution used in global Jovian simulations. The grid is highly non-uniform and varies with radial distance, with ∆r = 0.06 RJ near the inner boundary, set as a spherical shell at 3.5 RJ Jovi-centric. The upstream SW velocity is VX = -380 km/s, VY = VZ = 0, and the SW density is 0.2 /cm3, corresponding to the median value of solar wind conditions observed near 5AU. The interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) is fixed as BX = BZ = 0, By = 0.5 nT to represent nominal IMF observed near Jupiter. The mass loading rate from Io is set to 800 kg/s.
