Logo image
Back
Survey of Saturn electrostatic cyclotron harmonic wave intensity
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Survey of Saturn electrostatic cyclotron harmonic wave intensity

J. D. Menietti, T. F. Averkamp, W. S. Kurth, S. -Y. Ye, D. A. Gurnett and B. Cecconi
Journal of geophysical research. Space physics, Vol.122(8), pp.8214-8227
08/01/2017
DOI: 10.1002/2017JA023929

View Online

Abstract

We conduct a survey of electrostatic electron cyclotron harmonic (ECH) emissions observed at Saturn by the radio and plasma wave science investigation on board the Cassini spacecraft. These emissions are known to be effective at interacting with electrons in the terrestrial inner magnetosphere, producing electron scattering into the loss cone and acceleration (cf. Horne and Thorne, 2000; Thorne et al., 2010). At Saturn ECH emission occurs with high probability and at strong intensity near the magnetic equator, outside the Enceladus torus in the range similar to 5<L<similar to 10. Inside the inner boundary of the torus, ECH emissions are also observed near the equator and at higher latitude. Intensity levels of ECH emission are comparable to those observed at Earth, higher than Saturn chorus and Z-mode emission, and are likely to scatter electrons into the loss cone as at Earth. ECH waves are particularly intense and extend to higher harmonics within some plasma injection regions. We present results for a survey of over 8years of Saturn data for fundamental and up to three harmonics of f(ce), the electron cyclotron frequency.
 Astronomy & Astrophysics Physical Sciences Science & Technology

Details

Metrics

2 Record Views
13 Times Cited - Web of Science
Logo image