# Localised plasma density enhancements around comet CG/67P

Pierre Henri, Tom Broiles, Anders Eriksson, Christian Béghin, Jean-Pierre Lebreton, Xavier Vallieres, Jerome More, Gaetan Wattieaux, Ilka A. D. Engelhardt, Niklas Edberg, et al.

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To cite this version:

Pierre Henri, Tom Broiles, Anders Eriksson, Christian Béghin, Jean-Pierre Lebreton, et al. Localised plasma density enhancements around comet CG/67P. EGU General Assembly 2016, Apr 2016, Vienne, France. insu-03573507

HAL Id: insu-03573507

https://insu.hal.science/insu-03573507

Submitted on 15 Feb 2022

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Localised plasma density enhancements around comet CG/67P

Pierre Henri (1), Tom Broiles (2), Anders Eriksson (3), Christian Béghin (1), Jean-Pierre Lebreton (3), Xavier Vallieres (4), Jerome More (1), Gaetan Wattieaux (5), Ilka A. D. Engelhardt (3), Niklas Edberg (3), Elias Odelstad (3), Erik Vigren (3), Karl-Heinz Glassmeier (4), Charlotte Goetz (4), Christoph Koenders (4), Ingo Richter (4), Martin Volwerk (7), James L Burch (2), Ray Goldstein (2), Kathleen Mandt (2), and the Hans Nilsson (8), Gabriella Stenberg Wieser (8), Zoltan Nemeth (9), Karoly Szego (10), Chris Carr (11), Claire Vallat (12) on behalf of the RPC Team

(1) Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E) - CNRS - Université d'Orléans, Orléans, France (pierre.henri@cnrs-orleans.fr), (2) Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, United States, (3) IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (4) Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany, (5) University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d'Energie, Toulouse, France, (7) Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, target of the ESA's Rosetta mission, reached its perihelion at 1.3 AU from the Sun in August 2015. Its plasma environment will go on being monitored by the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) as the distance to the sun increases, until end of mission in September 2016.

Combining observations from the different RPC sensors, we investigate localised, strong enhancements of the cometary plasma density over short timescales (~ minutes to seconds) observed during the period April 2015 - January 2016. These strong plasma density variations (RPC-MIP and RPC-LAP) are likely associated to cold electrons (RPC-IES) and generally observed during magnetic field rotations (RPC-MAG). The location of such events, both in the rotating comet frame and with regard to the magnetic field direction, is discussed to better constrain the mechanism at the origin of these localised plasma density enhancements.