Supplying the Io plasma torus: Local versus extended plasma sources

Details Supplying the Io plasma torus: Local versus extended plasma sources Supplying the Io plasma torus: Local versus extended plasma sources

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsm11c..03w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SM11C-03

Physics

[2732] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere Interactions With Satellites And Rings, [5719] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Interactions With Particles And Fields, [5737] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Magnetospheres

Scientific paper

The Io plasma torus is the dominant source of plasma to the Jovian magnetosphere. Sources for this plasma include (1) ionization of plasma within a few Io radii of the satellite driven by the interaction of Io with the Jovian magnetic field and (2) material that is ionized remotely from Io through the interaction of energetic electrons from the plasma torus interacting with an extended neutral cloud. The characteristics of the torus and the mass flow into the Jovian magnetosphere as the torus is supplied by plasma from these two sources are examined using multi-scale/multi-fluid simulations. The multi-fluid aspects enable the dynamics of the difference ions species relevant to Io/torus interaction to be examined, while the multi-scale aspects allows the investigation of small scale processes at Io to be resolved, along with large scale processes involved with the coupling of Io’s plasma to the Jovian magnetosphere and ionosphere. The fluid aspect of the code allows the interaction to be studied for tens of hours as opposed a few minutes typical of local simulations. We demonstrate that the injection of plasma at 1000 kg/s from an extended source is able to sustain a plasma torus with overall densities comparable to inferred density profiles out to several Jovian radii. To produce the very high densities observed close to Io, a local source is shown to be an important factor. Efforts continue to increase the length of the simulations much longer time scales.

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