Observation of two Components in the Distribution of Trapped Protons at Saturn

Details Observation of two Components in the Distribution of Trapped Protons at Saturn Observation of two Components in the Distribution of Trapped Protons at Saturn

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm23a0289a&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM23A-0289

Physics

2720 Energetic Particles: Trapped, 2730 Magnetosphere: Inner, 2756 Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6033)

Scientific paper

Observations with several instruemnts taken from voyager 2's close flyby of Saturn in 1981 suggested the existence of a secondary peak in the energy spectrum of trapped protons in the 10 to 20 MeV range. Design of the Cassini MIMI LEMMS instruments was guided in part by the goal of measuring the energy spectrum and angular distribution of trapped protons with improved resolution. The Cassini SOI passage on July 1 of 2004 provided an opportunity to complete these observations. The existence of a secondary maximum was confirmed. Further, the pitch angle distribution of the low and high energy components were measured and found to differ importantly. The high energy protons tend to peak perpendicular to the magnetic field in accord with inward transport and conservation of adiabatic invariants. The low energy protons, however, tend to peak in intensity more nearly along the magnetic field. This behaviour suggests to us that the low energy protons are excluded from, or lost rapidly at, pitch angles that produce long dwell times near the Saturnian equator. Since this is the locus of abundant neutral gas, an explanation of the characteristics of trapped protons may be that low energy protons are quickly lost by charge exchange and couloumb scattering while high energy protons are not, owing to the fact that the cross sections for these processes fall rapidly with increasing proton energy.

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