Bremen 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik
EP 15: Exoplaneten und Astrobiologie
EP 15.2: Vortrag
Freitag, 17. März 2017, 11:30–11:45, GW2 B2880
Modeling the Cosmic Ray Induced Ionization in the Atmosphere of Earth and Earth-Like Planets Around M-Dwarfs — •Konstantin Herbst1, Bernd Heber1, Sasa Banjac1, and Andreas Kopp2 — 1Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut fü Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Germany — 2Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Service de Physique Statistique et des Plasmas, Belgium
The terrestrial electric field is known to be induced by cosmic rays (CRs) entering the Earth's atmosphere. While in the upper atmosphere CRs mainly lose their energy due to ionization of the ambient matter, with decreasing altitude the probability of an interaction with the surrounding atmospheric gasses drastically increases. Thereby, CRs are able to initiate secondary particle cascades consisting of, e.g., an electromagnetic component, which instantaneously leads to a further ionization of the middle as well as lower atmosphere. Using PLANETOCOSMICS, a GEANT4- based Monte-Carlo simulation code, we study the altitude-dependent (terrestrial) cosmic ray induced ionization (CRII). By now also eight Earth-like exoplanets orbiting around M-dwarfs (such as e.g., Proxima Centauri, our next stellar neighbor) have been found, we also compute the CRII of an Earth-like exoplanet. Because M-starts most likely have a much stronger stellar activity the computations may strongly differ from what we expect from Earth.