Thermal Ion Flow Velocities: Signatures of the Enceladus Torus?

Details Thermal Ion Flow Velocities: Signatures of the Enceladus Torus? Thermal Ion Flow Velocities: Signatures of the Enceladus Torus?

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p23b1380w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P23B-1380

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 6275 Saturn, 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

For the middle/outer (> 5.5 RS) magnetosphere of Saturn, Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) ion counting data provides thermal ion moments obtained assuming Maxwellian distributions for each ion species [Wilson et al., 2008]. However, in the inner magnetosphere (< 5.5 RS) within Saturn's extended neutral cloud and proposed Enceladus torus [Johnson et al., 2006], there is fresh ion production via charge exchange [Tokar et al., 2008], yielding a complex ion velocity distribution. In this study, a new technique is investigated to analyze the CAPS data in the inner region. The technique concentrates on finding the ion flow velocity using only the assumption that the ions are gryotropic. The available ion velocity space viewed by CAPS in a slice perpendicular to the magnetic field is translated within that plane to find the optimum flow velocity that yields gyrotropic ions. Near-equatorial trajectories of Cassini in the inner region are surveyed to determine both azimuthal and radial ion flow velocity. The azimuthal flow velocity profile with radial distance, a proxy for fresh ion production, is compared with models for both the Enceladus torus and extended neutral cloud. References: Wilson, R.J. et al., J. Geophys. Res. in press, doi:10.1029/2008ja013486 Johnson, R.E. et al., The Astrophysical Journal, pg L137, 20 June 2006. Tokar, R.L. et al, Geophys. Res. Letts., vol. 35, L14202, doi:10.1029/2008GL034749

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