EGU22-8761, updated on 21 Feb 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-8761
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Plasmoids in the Jovian Magnetotail: Statistical Survey of Ion Acceleration with Juno Observations

Aljona Blöcker1, Elena Kronberg1, Elena Grigorenko2, George Clark3, Marissa Vogt4, and Elias Roussos5
Aljona Blöcker et al.
  • 1Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany
  • 2Space Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
  • 3Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA
  • 4Center for Space Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
  • 5Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany

Jupiter's magnetosphere provides a unique natural laboratory to study processes of energy transport and transformation. Spatially confined structures such as plasmoids generate strong electric fields in the Jovian magnetotail and are responsible for ion acceleration to high energies. We focus on the effectiveness of ion energization and acceleration in plasmoids. Therefore, we present a statistical study of plasmoid structures in the predawn magnetotail, which were identified in the magnetometer data of the Juno spacecraft from 2016 to 2018 and documented by Vogt et al. (2020). For our study we additionally use the energetic particle observations from the Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) which discriminates between different ion species. We are particularly interested in the analysis of the acceleration and energization of oxygen, sulfur, helium and hydrogen ions in plasmoids and how these processes are affected by the event properties, such as the radial distance and the local time of the observed plasmoids inside the magnetotail, and the electromagnetic turbulence. We find significant heavy ion energization in plasmoids close to the current sheet center which is in line with the previous statistical results on acceleration in plasmoids based on Galileo observations conducted by Kronberg et al. (2019). The observed effectiveness of the energization is dependent on the position of Juno during the plasmoid event. Our results show no dependence between electromagnetic turbulence and non-adiabatic acceleration for heavy ions during plasmoids which is in opposition to the findings of Kronberg et al. (2019).

How to cite: Blöcker, A., Kronberg, E., Grigorenko, E., Clark, G., Vogt, M., and Roussos, E.: Plasmoids in the Jovian Magnetotail: Statistical Survey of Ion Acceleration with Juno Observations, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-8761, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-8761, 2022.