Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.3016m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #30.16; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.1298
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Observations of [OI] 630 nm emission from Io just after entering Jupiter’s shadow by Trauger et al.[1] and Retherford et al. [2] showed several features: an equatorial band located along the Jovian magnetic equatorial plane, a polar limb glow, a bright spot (tilted relative to Io’s equator) in the plasma wake, and lack of an upstream bright spot. The atmospheric interaction with electrons from Jupiter’s plasma torus is simulated via 3D direct Monte Carlo simulation which is divided into two routines: Excitation where electrons move and occasionally collide with the neutral atmosphere, and Emission where excited oxygen (produced by electron-oxygen collisions) moves and eventually emits or is collisionally quenched. Electron flux-tube depletion across Io occurs when electrons don’t back-scatter off the atmosphere and is explicitly accounted for in our model. When Io is north of the torus equator, the different number of scattering events across each hemisphere leads to a greater number flux of electrons reaching the wake from the south and hence the wake should be brighter in the south [3]. Further details of the model may be found in previous abstracts [3]. Our best simulation to date yields a wake spot half as bright and tilted roughly the same as observed [1,2]. Discrepancies are most likely due to the model’s lack of direct dissociative-[OI] excitation mechanism, the inadequacy of the atmospheric model, and the magnetic field model used. We find that it is the asymmetric flux tube depletion resulting from the different north/south timescales for electrons to travel between Io and the plasma torus edge that predominately controls the latitude of the wake spot, not the magnetic field angle.
[1] Trauger, J.T., et al. (1997) AAS-DPS abstract 1997DPS29.1802T
[2] Retherford, K.D. (2002) PhD dissertation, John Hopkins U
[3] Moore, C.M., et al., (2006) LPSC XXXVII, Abs. #2281
Evans Robert
Goldstein David B.
Moore Chris H.
Stapelfeldt Karl
Trafton Larry M.
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