Electron-Ion Thermal Equilibration At Saturn: Electron Signatures Of Ion Pick-Up?

Details Electron-Ion Thermal Equilibration At Saturn: Electron Signatures Of Ion Pick-Up? Electron-Ion Thermal Equilibration At Saturn: Electron Signatures Of Ion Pick-Up?

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aipc.1302..250r&link_type=abstract

PICKUP IONS THROUGHOUT THE HELIOSPHERE AND BEYOND: Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Astrophysics Conference. AIP Con

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

1

Saturn, Pick-Ups, Photoionisation, Spacecraft, Saturn, Pickup Ions, Multiphoton Ionization And Excitation To Highly Excited States, Spacecraft/Atmosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

Here we use theoretical considerations to compute the ion-electron temperature equilibration rate in Saturn's inner magnetosphere. We find that the timescale for electrons to equilibrate to the observed temperature with the resident ions at 8 Rs (Rs = one Saturn radius ~60300 km) via Coulomb collisions alone is ~70 hours. We estimate the rate of electron production and find that it is very slow, a maximum of ~0.19 electrons cm-3hr-1 at 8 Rs. The reported electron density at 8 Rs is ~10 cc-1, implying that the resident electrons are stable against transport for on the order of 53 hours (the time taken to accumulate 10 electrons per cm3 neglecting transport in or out of the region) and are therefore stationary long enough to heat to the observed temperature via this mechanism. Our results are consistent with a simple scenario wherein pick up electrons equilibrate to close to the local pick up proton temperature in situ via Coulomb collisions implying that the cold electron component in Saturn's inner magnetosphere has been substantially modified before being observed. While our results show that the cold electron component at Saturn might not be indicative of recent local ion pick-up, our results are quite general and could be applied in other plasma regimes to test whether observed electron distributions are indicative of ion pick-up.

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