Energetic ion Composition in Saturn's Magnetosphere Revisited

Physics

Scientific paper

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5719 Interactions With Particles And Fields, 5737 Magnetospheres (2756), 5764 Surfaces, 6275 Saturn, 6280 Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Following the Voyager 1 and 2 near encounters with Saturn, data from the Low Energy Charged Particle (LECP) detector were analyzed to infer heavy ion composition. The LECP instrument is made up of a series of total ion and proton channels which span the energy range from tens of keV to tens of MeV. Some channels overlap in coverage and previous investigations have used this fact to infer heavy ion to proton ratios. During the Voyager Uranus encounter, members of the LECP team discovered that some of the lowest energy total ions channels were also detecting penetrating electrons, thus corrupting the ion count rates. In their analysis, these investigators were able to remove the electron contributions in some cases and produce estimates of the ion counts. We have attempted to use their procedure to correct some of the LECP ion data from the Voyager close approaches to Saturn. The goal of this re-analysis is to determine whether any modifications need to be made to our predicted ion composition ratios. These data are critical to our understanding of Saturn's neutral cloud and for estimating sputtering rates from icy surfaces, heavy ions having much higher yields than protons of the same energy/amu. Finally, this study is timely for the upcoming Cassini encounter with Saturn.

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