Sources of Structure in the Outer Magnetosphere of Saturn

Details Sources of Structure in the Outer Magnetosphere of Saturn Sources of Structure in the Outer Magnetosphere of Saturn

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm23a1929e&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM23A-1929

Physics

[2740] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetospheric Configuration And Dynamics, [6275] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturn

Scientific paper

We address the question of the existence of density structure in the dayside outer magnetosphere. Simple thermal expansion of the inner magnetosphere neutral cloud would lead to a tenuous uniform background plasma with a mean ion lifetime in the magnetosphere of half a rotation period against evacuation out the tail. Such exists, but superimposed upon it are countless enhancements of plasma density. We investigate the hypothesis that these enhancements derive from various sources in the inner regions of the magnetosphere and that their characteristics provide indications of their origin. Plasma can come out to the Titan region either by direct transport processes driven by interchange instability or by neutralization of ions, their flight to the outer regions on highly eccentric Keplerian orbits and subsequent reionization in the outer magnetosphere [Johnson et al., GRL, 32, L24201, doi:10.1029/2005GL024275, 2005]. Transported plasma can reach the outer regions either as extended "fingers" of plasma that have been found in simulations to be a natural result of the existence of a dense plasma body in the inner magnetosphere [Kidder etal JGR, 114, A02205, doi:10.1029/2008JA013100, 2009], associated with either Io or Enceladus as the case may be, or as detached blobs of plasma sloughed off the plasma sheet by reconnection events Goertz, GRL,10, 455, 1983]. Major inhomogeneities have observed in both the Enceladus torus and to an even greater extent in the rings where embedde3d moonlets have been seen to cause major clumping of the ring material which in turn leads to spatial structure in the associated neutral atmospheres. Structure has also been observed in the ring ionosphere [Johnson et al., Icarus 180 393 2006]. We have assessed the significance of these various sources and find that they can provide the different types of density enhancements that characterize the outer magnetosphere plasma.

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