Nature of the iogenic plasma source in Jupiter's magnetosphere. II. Near-Io distribution

Details Nature of the iogenic plasma source in Jupiter's magnetosphere. II. Near-Io distribution Nature of the iogenic plasma source in Jupiter's magnetosphere. II. Near-Io distribution

Jul 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005icar..176..138s&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 176, Issue 1, p. 138-154.

Computer Science

2

Scientific paper

Three-dimensional calculations are presented for the distribution of the iogenic plasma source that is created near Io (i.e., within ˜24 satellite radii about Io) by O and S gases located in the volume above Io's exobase (i.e., corona and escaping extended neutral clouds, designated as the “Outer Region”) and are complementary to a preceding paper for calculations on a circumplanetary scale. The instantaneous pickup ion production rates for both electron impact and charge exchange have significant radial, north south, and orbital-plane asymmetries beginning just inside and/or beyond Io's Lagrange sphere (5.81 Io radii) and, within the Lagrange sphere, are distributed nearly symmetrically about Io and are highly peaked about Io's exobase. The spatial natures of the corresponding pickup ion density, mass loading rates, and the pickup ion conductivity, current, and magnetic field are investigated. Spatially integrated rates are calculated for the corona volume and compared to larger Outer Region circumplanetary volumes and are also compared to estimates drawn from the scientific literature (but not modeled here) of the spatially integrated rates for pickup processes in the strongly perturbed “Inner Region” below the exobase. Within the corona volume, the spatially-integrated net-mass loading rate and total (electron impact and charge exchange) mass loading rate are only a factor of ˜3 and ˜5, respectively, smaller than those estimated for the Inner Region, whereas for the whole plasma torus, the Outer Region rates are larger or comparable to those estimated for the Inner Region. The total pickup ion gyration power supplied to the whole plasma torus is estimated to be significantly less than the power radiated by the plasma torus, indicating that an additional power source, likely a circumplanetary distribution of nonthermal electrons, is present.

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