摘要：The issue of CH 4 escape on Titan is still under debate, and a range of escape rates from 10 24 to 10 27s −1 has been reported in previous studies. One effective way of solving the CH 4 escape dilemma is to investigate the morphology of the CH 4 torus around Saturn, which varies with both the total CH 4 escape rate on Titan and the CH 4 energy distribution near its exobase. Such a torus is modeled via a test particle Monte Carlo approach in this study for a variety of CH 4 escaping scenarios characterized by different energy distributions near the exobase. The model calculations indicate that the extension of the CH 4 torus depends critically on the population of the high-energy tail of the CH 4 energy distribution. The model also predicts several distinctive cavities in CH 4 density related to mean motion resonances between Titan and the torus particles.
关键词：planets and satellites: atmospheres;planets and satellites: individual (Titan)
