Plasma Sputtering Effects in Planetary Dust Dynamics

Details Plasma Sputtering Effects in Planetary Dust Dynamics Plasma Sputtering Effects in Planetary Dust Dynamics

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.4216h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #42.16; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.1299

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Plasma sputtering can greatly reduce the size of charged dust grains orbiting within the magnetosphere of Saturn in only a few decades. With both mass and charge varying in time, the resulting equations of motion are nonhamiltonian. Except for the small influence of radiation pressure, this system is axisymmetric and the question arises as to the existence of global invariants in the absence of a hamiltonian. For larger grains, where gravity dominates, we show that a formal hamiltonian may be constructed by treating the velocities as canonical momenta. For smaller grains, where the planetary magnetic field dominates, a hamiltonian description is apparently not possible. Nevertheless, an exact invariant is derivable from the axisymmetric equations of motion, and can be used to define a quasi-static effective potential. Implications for the history and structure of Saturn's E Ring and for observations by the Cassini orbiter CDA and UVIS experiments will be discussed.

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