Capability of the Cassini/Huygens PWA-HASI to measure electrical conductivity in Titan Original Research Article

The penetration of the Huygens probe through the atmosphere of Titan in 2004 will provide a unique opportunity to measure the electrical properties of its lower atmosphere. Many studies have been carried out to predict the density of electrons and the distribution of the major positive ions, but there is no recent analysis concerning the electrical conductivity that will be measured by Huygens. In this paper we present predictions of negative and positive conductivity by using the present models of the lower ionosphere. The predicted conductivity is delimited between a minimum and a maximum profile and compared with the capability of the PWA-HASI instrument on board Huygens to measure it. Special attention is paid to the influence of electrophilic species on the conductivity and on the decrease of the negative conductivity depending on the concentration of electrophilic species. We present an analytic expression to calculate the concentration of electrophilic species, if any, depending on the measurements of positive and negative conductivity that will measure PWA-HASI.