Equatorial electron beams and auroral structuring at Jupiter

It has been reported that low‐altitude regions of downward electric current on auroral magnetic field lines are sites of dramatic upward magnetic field‐aligned electron acceleration that generates intense magnetic field‐aligned electron beams within Earth's equatorial middle magnetosphere. Fiel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 2007-10, Vol.112 (A10), p.n/a
Main Authors: Mauk, Barry H., Saur, Joachim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
aurorae
auroral phenomena
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
field-aligned currents and current systems
magnetosphere/ionosphere interactions
magnetospheres
planetary magnetospheres
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Summary:It has been reported that low‐altitude regions of downward electric current on auroral magnetic field lines are sites of dramatic upward magnetic field‐aligned electron acceleration that generates intense magnetic field‐aligned electron beams within Earth's equatorial middle magnetosphere. Field‐aligned equatorial electron beams also are observed within Jupiter's middle magnetosphere. The mystery about these Jovian beams is that they are observed in a region thought to map to Jupiter's brightest aurora and on field lines that generally carry electric current away from Jupiter's atmosphere rather than toward the atmosphere as anticipated at Earth. Here we develop procedures for quantifying the character of the Jupiter electron beams (for example, how confined they are with respect to the magnetic field‐aligned directions). We apply the procedures to the highest time resolution electron data available from the Galileo Energetic Particle Detector (EPD). We find that the Jupiter equatorial electron beams are spatially and/or temporally structured (down to
ISSN:0148-0227
2156-2202
DOI:10.1029/2007JA012370