Martian magnetism with orbiting sub-millimeter sensor: simulated retrieval system

Abstract

Abstract. A Mars-orbiting sub-millimeter sensor can be used to retrieve the magnetic field at low altitudes over large areas of significant planetary crustal magnetism of the surface of Mars from measurements of circularly polarized radiation emitted by the 368 GHz ground-state molecular oxygen absorption line. We design a full retrieval system for one example orbit to show the expected accuracies on the magnetic field components that one realization of such a Mars satellite mission could achieve. For one set of measurements around a tangent profile, we find that the two horizontal components of the magnetic field can be measured at about 200 nT error with a vertical resolution of around 4 km from 6 up to 70 km in tangent altitude. The error is similar regardless of the true strength of the magnetic field, and it can be reduced by repeated measurements over the same area. The method and some of its potential pitfalls are described and discussed.

Mars submillimeter sensor on microsatellite: sensor feasibility study

“…In addition, while both chains work, we can measure the magnetic field. Molecular oxygen is affected by the Zeeman effect (Zeeman, 1897), so it is possible to sense the strongest crustal magnetic field through the state of polarization (for more details, please see Larsson et al, 2013Larsson et al, , 2014Larsson et al, , 2017Larsson et al, , 2018.…”

ARTS, the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator – version 2.2, the planetary toolbox edition

“…The module has also been applied to theoretical studies on mapping Martian surface magnetism (Larsson et al, 2013(Larsson et al, , 2017.…”

“…This has benefited greatly from the experience gathered with the last important addition that has to be mentioned here: the capability to simulate oxygen Zeeman splitting in a physically rigorous way, which is also handled by a Stokes vector formalism, described in Larsson et al (2014) and Larsson (2014). The method has been validated against observations in uplooking (Navas- Guzmán et al, 2015) and down-looking (Larsson et al, 2016) geometry and has also already been employed for some sensitivity and retrieval simulation studies (Larsson et al, 2013(Larsson et al, , 2017.…”

ARTS, the atmospheric radiative transfer simulator – version 2.2, the planetary toolbox edition

“…The method has been validated against observations in uplooking (Navas- Guzmán et al, 2015) and downlooking (Larsson et al, 2016) geometry, and also has already been employed for some sensitivity and retrieval simulation studies (Larsson et al, 2013(Larsson et al, , 2017.…”