Simulating the effect of centrifugal forces in rapidly rotating magnetospheres

Details Simulating the effect of centrifugal forces in rapidly rotating magnetospheres Simulating the effect of centrifugal forces in rapidly rotating magnetospheres

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsm11a2003v&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SM11A-2003

Physics

[2753] Magnetospheric Physics / Numerical Modeling, [2756] Magnetospheric Physics / Planetary Magnetospheres

Scientific paper

Centrifugal forces play an important role in the dynamics of rapidly rotating magnetospheres such as Jupiter and Saturn. For example, at Jupiter, centrifugal stresses are thought to be the dominant factor in driving the release of mass and energy from the system. It has also been proposed that the effects of rotation and field line stretching can explain local time asymmetries in the thickness of Jupiter's plasma sheet. Observations show that Jupiter's plasma sheet is thinnest in the post-midnight to dawn local time sectors, thickens as it rotates through the morning sector through noon, and becomes thickest near dusk. Kivelson and Southwood [2005] attributed the dusk side plasma sheet heating and thickening to centrifugal forces due to Jupiter's rapid rotation, suggesting that as a result of rotation, low energy particles gain parallel velocity as they move radially outward, and the resulting anisotropy makes the plasma sheet become unstable. We have developed a large-scale kinetic (LSK) simulation [Ashour-Abdalla et al., 1992] to test the key physical processes in this idea that rotation and field line stretching can produce an increase in net energy and particle anisotropy. In this simulation the Jovian magnetic field is represented by a simplified, axisymmetric version of the Khurana [1997] field, which we vary in time to reproduce the stretching that occurs as field lines rotate from noon to dusk. Here we will present the most recent results from this simulation project. Because we are testing only the key physical processes, our findings should help us understand the effects of rapid rotation and centrifugal stresses at both Jupiter and Saturn.

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