Heavy ion charge states in Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere inferred from auroral megavolt electric potentials
- 1Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD , USA
- 2Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
- 3Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA
- 4Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Department of Space and Climate Physics, University of College London, London, England
- 5Astronomy and Astrophysics Section, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Ireland
- 6Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany
In this presentation, we exploit the charge-dependent nature of field-aligned potentials in Jupiter’s polar cap auroral region to infer the charge states of energetic oxygen and sulfur. To-date, there are very limited and sparse measurements of the > 50 keV oxygen and sulfur charge states, yet many studies have demonstrated their importance in understanding the details of various physical processes, such as, X-ray aurora, ion-neutral interactions in Jupiter’s neutral cloud and particle acceleration theories. In this contribution, we develop a technique to determine the most abundant charge states associated with heavy ions in Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere. We find that O+ and S++ are the most abundant and therefore iogenic in origin. The results are important because they provide 1) strong evidence that soft X-ray sources are likely due to charge stripping of magnetospheric ions and; 2) a more complete spatial map of the oxygen and sulfur charge states, which is important for understanding how the charge- and mass-dependent physical processes sculpt the energetic particles throughout the Jovian magnetosphere.
How to cite: Clark, G., Mauk, B., Kollmann, P., Paranicas, C., Bagenal, F., Allen, R., Bingham, S., Bolton, S., Cohen, I., Ebert, R., Dunn, W., Haggerty, D., Houston, S., Jackman, C., Roussos, E., and Rymer, A.: Heavy ion charge states in Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere inferred from auroral megavolt electric potentials, Europlanet Science Congress 2020, online, 21 September–9 Oct 2020, EPSC2020-902, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2020-902, 2020