Characterisation of low-frequency waves in Titan’s plasma environment

Waves in plasmas play a significant role in the transfer of energy between various plasma populations. As an example, the moon-plasma interaction of Titan’s ionosphere and Saturn’s magnetosphere can exhibit processes requiring wave generation. However, wave signatures have not been systematically analysed at Titan and have only been analysed for a few flybys, e.g., Russel et al., 2016. In this work, we characterise low-frequency waves in Titan’s plasma environment based on observations from Cassini. We use magnetometer data (MAG) to identify low-frequency wave signatures in Titan’s exosphere/ionosphere. We also analyse moments from the ion and electron Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) when the data is available. We find 10 flybys with the wave signatures around the local ion cyclotron frequency. We also find that most of the wave signatures are found on the anti-Saturn face of Titan. The average amplitude of a wave is < 1 nT in most cases. Finally, we discuss how these waves can affect plasma dynamics around Titan and contribute to Titan’s upper ionosphere dynamics.