Probing the properties of planetary ring dust by the observation of Mach cones

Details Probing the properties of planetary ring dust by the observation of Mach cones Probing the properties of planetary ring dust by the observation of Mach cones

Feb 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995jgr...100.1731h&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research (ISSN 0148-0227), vol. 100, no. A2, p. 1731-1734

Physics

42

Interplanetary Dust, Mach Cones, Planetary Rings, Radio Probing, Remote Sensing, Saturn (Planet), Stellar Occultation, Cassini Mission, Corotation, Lorentz Force, Orbital Velocity, Planetary Magnetic Fields, Turbulent Wakes

Scientific paper

Compressive dust acoustic waves can be excited in dusty plasmas. Big boulders in planetary rings move at the Keplerian velocity, while smaller dust particles move at a slightly different velocity due to the action of the Lorentz force. If the difference in velocity Delta v is larger than the dust acoustic wave velocity, alphad, a wake will be formed with an opening angle of 2 theta where sin theta = absolute value of (alphad/Delta v). The discovery of wakes and the measurement of their opening angles by the space experiment Cassini to Saturn will yield added information on the dusty plasma conditions in regions through which Cassini will not pass. We find that in some regions the waves that are excited by the boulders may be weak because a large fraction of the interacting dust is absorbed rather than deflected by the boulder. For a given dust size the most favorable conditions for the observations of wakes exist in two fairly narrow regions, one inside and one outside the corotation radius. The favorable regions are closest to the corotation radius for the smallest dust particles and progressively further away for larger dust particles.

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