Radial transport within the Jovian main ring

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Scientific paper

Due to their fast transport times through the Jovian system, the dust-sized grains within Jupiter's main ring are thought to be continually replenished. A likely source for these particles is meteoroid bombardment into parent bodies within the main ring as well as the small moons Metis and Adrastea. The main ring appears distinctly different in low phase angle Galileo SSI images than at high phase angles. Low phase angle images reveal two bright bands at the outer egde of the main ring. These bands may represent the locations of macroscopic ring particles. Showalter et al. (1987, Icarus, 69, 458-498) found that the size distribution of micron-sized grains follows a power law distribution with an index of 2.5 + 0.5. Such a distribution is believed to be consistent with a meteoroid bombardment origin for the smaller ring particles. Using Galileo SSI and NIMS data, we have determined that the particles follow a broken power law size distribution between 0.1 and 100 microns: a relatively steep power law distribution above 15 microns and a shallower one at smaller sizes. Size-dependent particle loss and transport processes may explain this deviation from a simple power law distribution. Previous models have invoked such processes to explain other characteristics of the Jovian ring system. We have incorporated these results into a simple model of radial transport for the ring particles to determine which, if any, of the physical processes previously examined can explain our derived size distribution and resolve the differences between the ring's profile as seen at high and low phase angles. We will report on the initial results of our efforts to model radial transport in the Jovian main ring.

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