Computer Science
Scientific paper
Apr 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....14292s&link_type=abstract
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #14292
Computer Science
Scientific paper
In comparisons of planetary magnetospheres, the dominant contribution of rotational stresses at Jupiter as contrasted with the dominant role of solar wind-driven interactions at Earth has been stressed repeatedly. Discussions of the outward transport of the plasma delivered at a rate of a ton per second to the magnetosphere of Jupiter from a source at Io, deep within the magnetosphere, have focused on interchange and diffusion. Here we consider the mechanisms of plasma transport from the middle magnetospheric plasmasheet to the outer portions of Jupiter's magnetosphere, invoking a different mechanism. We base our analysis on data acquired by Galileo and by previous spacecraft over a range of dayside local times between dawn and dusk, emphasizing in particular the dawn-dusk asymmetry that distinguishes Jupiter's rotation-dominated magnetosphere from Earth's. As the outer part of the plasmasheet rotates from dawn to noon, it moves radially inward and centrifugal stresses become increasingly effective in destabilizing the outermost flux tubes. Cloudlets of plasma enclosed in magnetic bubbles, sometimes observed as magnetic "nulls", break off to serve as a source of plasma for the outer magnetospheric flux tubes in the "cushion" region. Once trapped on a flux tube of the outer magnetosphere, a bubble is compressed by magnetic pressure and plasma moves along the field direction to fill a large volume. The cross section of the filled flux tube decreases and eventually can no longer confine the plasma which then expands into a much larger volume of the outer magnetosphere. The outer magnetospheric flux tubes lose their Iogenic plasma as they rotate through the magnetotail from which the plasma must return to the solar wind. Emphasizing the role of centrifugal stresses on the plasmasheet and the outer magnetospheric plasma, we also interpret the local time asymmetry of the thickness of the plasmasheet and account for the presence of auroral activity in high latitude regions of Jupiter's ionosphere where rotational effects generate currents in the afternoon outer magnetosphere.
Galland Kivelson Margaret
Southwood David J.
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