scholarly journals Jupiter’s Aurora: Solar Wind and Rotational Influences

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 606
Author(s):  
J. Hunter Waite ◽  
John T. Clarke ◽  
R.J. Walker ◽  
John E.P. Connerney ◽  
D. McComas ◽  
...  

AbstractJovian auroral emissions are observed at infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and x-ray wavelengths. As at Earth, pitch-angle scattering of energetic particles into the atmospheric loss cone and the acceleration of current-carrying electrons in field-aligned currents both play a role in exciting the auroral emissions. The x-ray aurora is believed to result principally from heavy ion precipitation, while the ultraviolet aurora is produced predominantly by precipitating energetic electrons. The magnetospheric processes responsible for the aurora are driven primarily by planetary rotation. Acceleration of Iogenic plasma by rotationally-induced electric fields results in both the formation of the energetic ions that are scattered and the formation of strong, field-aligned currents that communicate the torques from the ionosphere. In addition to rotation-driven processes, solar-wind-modulated processes in the outer magnetosphere may lead to highly, time-dependent acceleration and thus also contribute to jovian auroral activity. Observational evidence for both sources will be presented. See Waite et al. (2001, Nat., 410, 787).

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 493-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zheng Xiang ◽  
Binbin Ni ◽  
Chen Zhou ◽  
Zhengyang Zou ◽  
Xudong Gu ◽  
...  

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Radiation belt electron flux dropouts are a kind of drastic variation in the Earth's magnetosphere, understanding of which is of both scientific and societal importance. Using electron flux data from a group of 14 satellites, we report multi-satellite simultaneous observations of magnetopause and atmospheric losses of radiation belt electrons during an event of intense solar wind dynamic pressure pulse. When the pulse occurred, magnetopause and atmospheric loss could take effect concurrently contributing to the electron flux dropout. Losses through the magnetopause were observed to be efficient and significant at <i>L</i> ≳ 5, owing to the magnetopause intrusion into <i>L</i> ∼ 6 and outward radial diffusion associated with sharp negative gradient in electron phase space density. Losses to the atmosphere were directly identified from the precipitating electron flux observations, for which pitch angle scattering by plasma waves could be mainly responsible. While the convection and substorm injections strongly enhanced the energetic electron fluxes up to hundreds of keV, they could delay other than avoid the occurrence of electron flux dropout at these energies. It is demonstrated that the pulse-time radiation belt electron flux dropout depends strongly on the specific interplanetary and magnetospheric conditions and that losses through the magnetopause and to the atmosphere and enhancements of substorm injection play an essential role in combination, which should be incorporated as a whole into future simulations for comprehending the nature of radiation belt electron flux dropouts.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianran Sun

&lt;p&gt;The Earth's magnetosheath is luminous in the soft X-ray band, due to the solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) process. SWCX occurs when a heavy solar wind ion with a high charge state encounters with a neutral component. The heavy ion obtains an electron and gets into an excited state. It then decays to the ground state and emits a photon in the soft X-ray band. Considering that the X-ray emission from the magnetosheath is higher compared to that from the magnetosphere, information about the boundary positions can be derived from an X-ray image of the magnetosheath.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The solar wind - magnetosphere - ionosphere link explorer (SMILE) is a mission jointly supported by ESA and CAS, which aims at exploring the dynamics in the whole system. Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) is expected to provide X-ray images of the magnetosphere. The Modeling Working Group (MWG) is one of the four working groups of SMILE. Studies about the modeling of X-ray emissions as well as the method to derive the boundary positions are two main topics of the MWG. The main progress of MWG will be summarized here.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 941-951 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. V. Badman ◽  
S. W. H. Cowley

Abstract. We consider the contribution of the solar wind-driven Dungey-cycle to flux transport in Jupiter's and Saturn's magnetospheres, the associated voltages being based on estimates of the magnetopause reconnection rates recently derived from observations of the interplanetary medium in the vicinity of the corresponding planetary orbits. At Jupiter, the reconnection voltages are estimated to be ~150 kV during several-day weak-field rarefaction regions, increasing to ~1 MV during few-day strong-field compression regions. The corresponding values at Saturn are ~25 kV for rarefaction regions, increasing to ~150 kV for compressions. These values are compared with the voltages associated with the flows driven by planetary rotation. Estimates of the rotational flux transport in the "middle" and "outer" magnetosphere regions are shown to yield voltages of several MV and several hundred kV at Jupiter and Saturn respectively, thus being of the same order as the estimated peak Dungey-cycle voltages. We conclude that under such circumstances the Dungey-cycle "return" flow will make a significant contribution to the flux transport in the outer magnetospheric regions. The "return" Dungey-cycle flows are then expected to form layers which are a few planetary radii wide inside the dawn and morning magnetopause. In the absence of significant cross-field plasma diffusion, these layers will be characterized by the presence of hot light ions originating from either the planetary ionosphere or the solar wind, while the inner layers associated with the Vasyliunas-cycle and middle magnetosphere transport will be dominated by hot heavy ions originating from internal moon/ring plasma sources. The temperature of these ions is estimated to be of the order of a few keV at Saturn and a few tens of keV at Jupiter, in both layers.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riku Jarvinen ◽  
Esa Kallio ◽  
Tuija Pulkkinen

&lt;p&gt;We investigate the effect of foreshock ultra-low frequency (ULF) waves on the solar wind induced heavy ion escape from Venus and Mars in a global hybrid model. The foreshock ULF waves are excited by backstreaming ion populations scattered at the quasi-parallel bow shock, and convect downstream with the solar wind. In the model, the waves affect magnetic and electric fields in the Venusian and Martian plasma environments causing fluctuations in the heavy ion acceleration processes such as the solar wind ion pickup. This leads to significant modulations in global escape rates of ionized planetary volatiles at the ULF wave frequency. We study this process in a global hybrid model, where ions are treated as particle clouds moving under the Lorentz force and electrons are a charge-neutralizing fluid. The analyzed simulation runs use more than 200 simulation particle clouds per cell on average to allow enough velocity space resolution for resolving foreshock, wave phenomena and ion escape processes self-consistently. We find that at Venus the global ion escape is modulated by the ULF waves even under nominal solar wind and IMF upstream conditions, while at Mars the modulation becomes significant under a strongly radial IMF orientation.&lt;/p&gt;


Author(s):  
L. Lamy

Uranus and Neptune possess highly tilted/offset magnetic fields whose interaction with the solar wind shapes unique twin asymmetric, highly dynamical, magnetospheres. These radiate complex auroral emissions, both reminiscent of those observed at the other planets and unique to the ice giants, which have been detected at radio and ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths to date. Our current knowledge of these radiations, which probe fundamental planetary properties (magnetic field, rotation period, magnetospheric processes, etc.), still mostly relies on Voyager 2 radio, UV and in situ measurements, when the spacecraft flew by each planet in the 1980s. These pioneering observations were, however, limited in time and sampled specific solar wind/magnetosphere configurations, which significantly vary at various timescales down to a fraction of a planetary rotation. Since then, despite repeated Earth-based observations at similar and other wavelengths, only the Uranian UV aurorae have been re-observed at scarce occasions by the Hubble Space Telescope. These observations revealed auroral features radically different from those seen by Voyager 2, diagnosing yet another solar wind/magnetosphere configuration. Perspectives for the in-depth study of the Uranian and Neptunian auroral processes, with implications for exoplanets, include follow-up remote Earth-based observations and future orbital exploration of one or both ice giant planetary systems. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Future exploration of ice giant systems’.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Clark ◽  
Chris Paranicas ◽  
Joseph Westlake ◽  
Barry Mauk ◽  
Peter Kollmann ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Remote observations clearly show that soft X-ray emissions at Jupiter concentrate poleward of the main oval forming a so-called &amp;#8220;hot spot&amp;#8221; (Gladstone et al., 2002; Dunn et al., 2016). One hypothesis proposes that the X-rays are likely produced from precipitating energetic heavy ions that become fully stripped via interactions in Jupiter&amp;#8217;s upper atmosphere; however, the details regarding the ion source and acceleration mechanism(s) of the soft X-ray (~2 keV) component is still an active area of research. NASA&amp;#8217;s Juno mission &amp;#8211; a Jupiter polar orbiting spacecraft &amp;#8211; is shedding light onto this mystery with in situ observations of the energetic particle environment over the poles, and coordinated observing campaigns with Earth-orbiting X-ray observatories, e.g., Chandra and XMM-Newton. Recent ideas supported by Juno data include: 1) pitch angle scattering of energetic ions via electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves in the outer magnetosphere (Yao et al., 2021); and 2) acceleration of ions to several MeV over Jupiter&amp;#8217;s poles via field-aligned electric potentials (Clark et al., 2017; Haggerty et al., 2017; Clark et al., 2020; Yao et al., 2021). New techniques have been recently developed to push the capabilities of Juno&amp;#8217;s Jupiter Energetic particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) to measure the &gt; 10 MeV ions (Westlake et al., 2019; Kollmann et al., 2020). In this presentation, we utilize these techniques to characterize the precipitating fluxes of &gt; 10 MeV ions over Jupiter&amp;#8217;s polar region with the goal of better understanding the sources of Jupiter&amp;#8217;s X-ray auroral emissions.&lt;/p&gt;


1988 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 339-342
Author(s):  
J.M. Laming ◽  
J.D. Silver ◽  
R. Barnsley ◽  
J. Dunn ◽  
K.D. Evans ◽  
...  

AbstractNew observations of x-ray spectra from foil-excited heavy ion beams are reported. By observing the target in a direction along the beam axis, an improvement in spectral resolution, δλ/λ, by about a factor of two is achieved, due to the reduced Doppler broadening in this geometry.


Author(s):  
Martin Peckerar ◽  
Anastasios Tousimis

Solid state x-ray sensing systems have been used for many years in conjunction with scanning and transmission electron microscopes. Such systems conveniently provide users with elemental area maps and quantitative chemical analyses of samples. Improvements on these tools are currently sought in the following areas: sensitivity at longer and shorter x-ray wavelengths and minimization of noise-broadening of spectral lines. In this paper, we review basic limitations and recent advances in each of these areas. Throughout the review, we emphasize the systems nature of the problem. That is. limitations exist not only in the sensor elements but also in the preamplifier/amplifier chain and in the interfaces between these components.Solid state x-ray sensors usually function by way of incident photons creating electron-hole pairs in semiconductor material. This radiation-produced mobile charge is swept into external circuitry by electric fields in the semiconductor bulk.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (45) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Salman Zaidan Khalaf ◽  
Khaleel Abrahim ◽  
Imad Kassar Akeab

    X-ray emission contains some of the gaseous properties is produced when the particles of the solar wind strike the atmosphere of comet ISON and PanSTARRS Comets. The data collected with NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory of the two comets, C/2012 S1 (also known as Comet ISON) and C/2011 S4 (Comet PanSTARRS) are used in this study.    The real abundance of the observed X-ray spectrum elements has been extracted by a new simple mathematic model. The study found some physical properties of these elements in the comet’s gas such as a relationship between the abundance with emitted energy. The elements that have emission energy (2500-6800) eV, have abundance (0.1-0.15) %, while the elements that have emission energy (850-2500) eV and (6800-9250) eV have abundance (0.2-0.3) %.    The relation between interacted energy and atomic number is form two sets.  The interacted energy of each element is increased as the atomic number increased. This case has been seen in both comets


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