Imperial College London
Alternate

ProfessorMicheleDougherty

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Physics

Head of Department of Physics, Professor of Space Physics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7770m.dougherty Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Ms Lida Mnatsakanian +44 (0)20 7594 7503

 
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Location

 

Blackett 900aBlackett LaboratorySouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Lai:2016:10.1002/2016JA022436,
author = {Lai, HR and Russell, CT and Jia, YD and Wei, HY and Dougherty, MK},
doi = {10.1002/2016JA022436},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics},
pages = {3050--3057},
title = {Transport of magnetic flux and mass in Saturn's inner magnetosphere},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016JA022436},
volume = {121},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - It is well accepted that cold plasma sourced by Enceladus is ultimately lost to the solar wind, while the magnetic flux convecting outward with the plasma must return to the inner magnetosphere. However, whether the interchange or reconnection, or a combination of the two processes is the dominant mechanism in returning the magnetic flux is still under debate. Initial Cassini observations have shown that the magnetic flux returns in the form of flux tubes in the inner magnetosphere. Here we investigate those events with 10 year Cassini magnetometer data and confirm that their magnetic signatures are determined by the background plasma environments: inside (outside) the plasma disk, the returning magnetic field is enhanced (depressed) in strength. The distribution, temporal variation, shape, and transportation rate of the flux tubes are also characterized. The flux tubes break into smaller ones as they convect in. The shape of their cross section is closer to circular than fingerlike as produced in the simulations based on the interchange mechanism. In addition, no sudden changes in any flux tube properties can be found at the “boundary” which has been claimed to separate the reconnection and interchange-dominant regions. On the other hand, reasonable cold plasma loss rate and outflow velocity can be obtained if the transport rate of the magnetic flux matches the reconnection rate, which supports reconnection alone as the dominant mechanism in unloading the cold plasma from the inner magnetosphere and returning the magnetic flux from the tail.
AU  - Lai,HR
AU  - Russell,CT
AU  - Jia,YD
AU  - Wei,HY
AU  - Dougherty,MK
DO  - 10.1002/2016JA022436
EP  - 3057
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 2169-9402
SP  - 3050
TI  - Transport of magnetic flux and mass in Saturn's inner magnetosphere
T2  - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016JA022436
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/39955
VL  - 121
ER  -
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