This book addresses and reviews many of the still little understood questions related to the processes underlying planetary magnetic fields and their interaction with the solar wind. With focus on research carried out within the German Priority Program "PlanetMag", it also provides an overview of the most recent research in the field.

Magnetic fields play an important role in making a planet habitable by protecting the environment from the solar wind. Without the geomagnetic field, for example, life on Earth as we know it would not be possible. And results from recent space missions to Mars and Venus strongly indicate that planetary magnetic fields play a vital role in preventing atmospheric erosion by the solar wind. However, very little is known about the underlying interaction between the solar wind and a planet's magnetic field.

The book takes a synergistic interdisciplinary approach that combines newly developed tools for data acquisition and analysis,computer simulations of planetary interiors and dynamos, models of solar wind interaction, measurement of ancient terrestrial rocks and meteorites, and laboratory investigations.

Autorentext

Hermann Lühr was Professor of Geophysics at Technical University Braunschweig and Senior Scientist at Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, Potsdam, Germany. He has been (Co-) PI of several research projects and space missions, served on various committees and has won a series of prestigious prizes. His scientific interests include geomagnetism, magnetospheric/ionospheric physics, plasma physics, current systems, upper atmosphere, space weather, and instrument development.

Johannes Wicht is a research staff member at MPS Göttingen, Germany.

Stuart Gilder is Professor of Geophysics at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich. Before arriving in Germany he served as Director of the Geomagnetic Observatories of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France. His research interests mostly focus on paleomagnetism and the effects o f high pressures on magnetic properties using the diamond anvil cell.

Matthias Holschneider is Professor of applied Mathematics at the University of Potsdam, Germany and Director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Dynamics of Complex Systems (DYCOS).

Inhalt

Scientific summary of the German Priority Program PlanetMag.- Modelling the Interior Dynamics of Gas Planets.- Global geomagnetic field reconstructions from centuries to excursions.- Sub-decadal and decadal variations in Earth core flow models for 1957 to 2008.- Laboratory experiments and numerical simulations on magnetic instabilities.- Modeling magnetospheric fields in the Jupiter system.- Empirical models of currents in terrestrial planetary magnetospheres and their response to solar wind dynamics.- Kinetic Simulations of the Particle Acceleration at Mercury.- Physical processes in the dusty plasma of the Enceladus plume.- The ionospheric current system and its contributions to the Earth's magnetic field.- Climatology of vertical plasma flow in the terrestrial cusp region: seasonal and IMF dependence.- The crustal magnetic field of Mars.- Magnetic signatures of terrestrial meteorite impact craters: A summary.- Magnetic Properties of the Iron-Nickel System: Pressure, Composition and Grain Size.