Signatures of field-aligned currents in Saturn's nightside magnetosphere

Details Signatures of field-aligned currents in Saturn's nightside magnetosphere Signatures of field-aligned currents in Saturn's nightside magnetosphere

Oct 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009georl..3619107t&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 19, CiteID L19107

Physics

9

Magnetospheric Physics: Planetary Magnetospheres (5443, 5737, 6033), Magnetospheric Physics: Field-Aligned Currents And Current Systems (2409), Magnetospheric Physics: Auroral Phenomena (2407), Magnetospheric Physics: Ring Current, Magnetospheric Physics: Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions

Scientific paper

We report first results of a survey of near-simultaneous and near-conjugate magnetic field perturbations observed over Saturn's northern and southern nightside auroral regions on ˜40 periapsis passes of the Cassini spacecraft during 2008. Structured azimuthal fields that are generally anti-symmetric north and south were observed at auroral latitudes on all passes, indicative of the signatures of field-aligned currents associated with magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Two basic field patterns are discerned. One is associated exclusively with ‘lagging’ fields on high-latitude field lines in both hemispheres, while the other includes a transition from ‘lagging’ to ‘leading’ fields with decreasing latitude in both hemispheres. The principal field-aligned currents are found to span the region of the open-closed field line boundary and the outer magnetosphere/ring current, with the region of upward current, potentially associated with ionospheric auroral emissions, usually being located on closed field lines just equatorward of the boundary.

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