Skip to main content
Dryad

Data and code from: Ion pickup and velocity space thermalization at outer planet moons

An, Xin1; Chang, Miranda1; Cao, Hao1; Angelopoulos, Vassilis1; Artemyev, Anton1

Published Apr 17, 2026 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hx3ffbgtw

Data files

Apr 17, 2026 version files 53.91 GB

Click names to download individual files Select up to 11 GB of files for zip download

Abstract

This dataset supports the study of ion pickup dynamics and velocity-space thermalization at the outer planets' active moons (Io, Enceladus, Europa). It contains output from hybrid-kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations in which O+ ions are treated kinetically and electrons are modeled as a massless fluid. The simulations are performed in the moon's rest frame, where ambient corotating ions stream perpendicular to the background magnetic field, forming a nongyrotropic two-population velocity distribution that drives electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC), mirror-mode, and ion Bernstein wave instabilities. The dataset includes time-series of electromagnetic field components, ion current densities, number densities, and pressure tensors defined on simulation grids, as well as particle phase-space data used for field-particle correlation analysis and velocity distribution function reconstruction. Together, these data enable quantitative analysis of wave dispersion properties, particle energetics, and wave-driven ion scattering in both gyrophase and pitch angle, providing a kinetic characterization of pickup-driven wave-particle interactions relevant to in situ observations at active moons throughout the outer solar system.