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Molecular physics and kinetics of high-temperature planetary atmospheres

  • Astrochemistry
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Abstract

The space exploration is nowadays assisted by realistic modeling of re-entry conditions of space vehicles in planetary atmospheres, for the design of thermal protection systems. The detailed kinetic modeling relies on the accurate description of elementary process dynamics, including the role of the excitation of the internal degrees of freedom of chemical species. Efforts in the construction of a complete and consistent dynamical information are presented, focusing on hydrogen plasmas relevant to the Jupiter atmosphere. Examples of numerical experiments are given, emphasizing the relevance of the adopted state-to-state approach in reproducing the onset of non-equilibrium internal distributions governing the plasma system evolution.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n. 242311.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Mario Capitelli & Giuliano D’Ammando

  2. IMIP CNR, Bari, Italy

    Mario Capitelli, Domenico Bruno, Gianpiero Colonna, Fabrizio Esposito, Annarita Laricchiuta & Lucia Daniela Pietanza

Authors
  1. Mario Capitelli
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  2. Domenico Bruno
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  3. Gianpiero Colonna
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  4. Giuliano D’Ammando
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  5. Fabrizio Esposito
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  6. Annarita Laricchiuta
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  7. Lucia Daniela Pietanza
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mario Capitelli.

Additional information

This paper is one of those collected in this issue and presented on the occasion of the symposium “Astrochemistry: molecules in space and time” (Rome, 4–5 November 2010), sponsored by Fondazione “Guido Donegani” and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Other 11 related papers and an Introduction to the whole series of papers on this topic were published in the previous issue of Rendiconti Lincei (Vol. 22-2, June 2011).

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Capitelli, M., Bruno, D., Colonna, G. et al. Molecular physics and kinetics of high-temperature planetary atmospheres. Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei 22, 201–210 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12210-011-0132-6

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