Density structures in the Jovian magnetosphere

[摘要] This paper continues the work of Ansher et al. (1992) by identifying and examining density structures in Jupiter's magnetosphere. The 110 hours of data used are from a 4-second temporal resolution density data set derived from plasma wave instruments on board both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. One hundred five structures are identified. They are believed to be the same type of structures as seen by Ansher et al. (1992) and are found to have sharp density gradients at the boundaries, average scale sizes of about one Jovian radius, and typical density variations between 50% and 200% of the background. Many structures show good correlation with the magnetic field data. In addition, the existence of the density structures has little if any dependence on radial distance from Jupiter, System III longitude, or magnetic latitude. Comparison with four plasma transport models indicates that the observed structures resemble flux tubes of varying plasma content compared to the background density. These findings are in agreement with those of Ansher et al. (1992).

[发布机构] Rice University

[效力级别] physics