Ion and neutral sources and sinks within Saturn's inner magnetosphere: Cassini results

Auroral Processes at the Giant Planets: Energy Deposition, Emission Mechanisms, Morphology and Spectra

“…suggest that this corresponds to the location where plasma flow initially departs from rigid corotation at radial distances of 3-4 R S in the magnetosphere (Wilson et al 2009), and invoke a system of corotation-enforcement currents flowing between the ionosphere and inner magnetosphere. The small radial distance of this corotationbreakdown region is somewhat unexpected, given that the region of maximum ion formation is further out, closer to ∼ 6 R S (Sittler et al 2008). A similar feature was observed in HST UV images but the emission is very faint compared to the main oval (1.7 kR) such that it can only be observed on the nightside when the tilt angle is large so that the emission is limb-brightened .…”

Comparative study of the power transferred from satellite-magnetosphere interactions to auroral emissions

“…The density profiles along the Io and Europa flux tubes were approximated from the torus models of Bagenal [1994] and Moncuquet et al [2002], and the ionospheric profile from the simulations by Su et al [2003]. The density profile along the Enceladus flux tube is approximated from torus models [Sittler et al, 2008;Fleshman et al, 2010] and assumes a Saturn ionosphere scale height of ∼1600 km.…”

Heavy ion formation in Titan's ionosphere: Magnetospheric introduction of free oxygen and a source of Titan's aerosols?

“…Therefore, cosmic rays will be effective in driving the aerosol chemistry at all phases of their time history from formation at the highest attitudes -u950 km down to the surface. Borucki et al (2006) presented evidence for ion clusters such as CH'5CH4, C 7 H -7 , C41 1^ and H4C7N' to form below 400 kin due to the ionization of nitrogen and methane by cosmic rays, They show that PAHs, which can be electrophilic (see Bakes et al, 2002 1 1, can form negative ions and si g ni ficantly reduce electron densities, 0 between 150 and 350 km, below that one would otherwise expect. In addition to PAHs fullerenes are also highly electrophilic as discussed previously and will similarly form negative ions.…”