HR: 11:14h
AN: SM52A-05    [Abstracts]
TI: A Statistical Study of Injection/Dispersion Events in Saturn's Inner Magnetosphere
AU: * Chen, Y
EM: yichen@rice.edu
AF: Physics and Astronomy Department, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77251-1892, United States
AU: Hill, T W
EM: hill@rice.edu
AF: Physics and Astronomy Department, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, TX 77251-1892, United States
AB: In the inner magnetosphere of a rapidly rotating planet like Jupiter or Saturn, radial transport of plasma is mainly composed of hot, tenuous plasma moving inward and cold, denser plasma moving outward. The drift dispersion of injecting hot plasma provides direct evidence for this convective process. The Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) has frequently reported observations of such injection/dispersion events [e.g., Burch et al., 2005 GRL L14S02; Hill et al., 2005 GRL L14S10]. Based on the study of Hill et al., the analysis of the properties of such signatures is continued in this paper, with a much larger data set of 26 Cassini orbits of Saturn, extending from July 2004 to August 2006. A statistical picture of the injection/dispersion characteristics is developed, indicating the distributions of ages, time scales and length scales. Moreover, an interesting rotational modulation of occurrence frequency is present in the Voyager-era Saturn Longitude System (SLS), but not in the Cassini-era Saturn Kilometric Radiation (SKR) system. A periodogram analysis using the Lomb-Scargle algorithm is underway to provide the accurate information of the recurrence period. Preliminary results show multiple-peaks in the period window near 11 hours.
DE: 2730 Magnetosphere: inner
DE: 2760 Plasma convection (2463)
DE: 6275 Saturn
SC: SPA-Magnetospheric Physics [SM]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting