HR: 0830h
AN: P21C-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Loss from Saturn's E Ring through ion pick-up
AU: * Leisner, J S
EM: jleisner@ess.ucla.edu
AF: IGPP, UCLA, Box 951567, Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States
AU: Russell, C T
EM: ctrussell@igpp.ucla.edu
AF: IGPP, UCLA, Box 951567, Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States
AU: Dougherty, M K
EM: m.dougherty@imperial.ac.uk
AF: Imperial College, The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
AU: Blanco-Cano, X
EM: xbc@tonatiuh.igeofcu.unam.mx
AF: UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacan, 04510 Mexico
AU: Smith, E J
EM: Edward.J.Smith@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: JPL, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Tsurutani, B T
EM: Bruce.T.Tsurutani@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: JPL, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AB: When the neutrals that compose Saturn's E ring are exposed to solar radiation or impacting energetic particles, they become ionized at a rate of the order of 10^-9/s. Within Saturn's magnetosphere, any newly created ions will be accelerated by the electric field associated with the corotating magnetized plasma. If the energy the ions gain in this pick-up process is sufficiently great, they will then begin to produce magnetic oscillations at a characteristic frequency. When Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 passed through this region of the saturnian system, their magnetometers both observed intervals of such waves whose frequencies point to water-group ion sources. The magnetometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft has also observed these water-group ion cyclotron waves. The range of coverage from the multiple passes allow us to analyze their variation in space and time. The water-group ions that create these waves represent a loss of material from the neutral E ring so, by studying the ion cyclotron waves as a proxy for mass loading, we can quantify the rates of erosion of the E ring through ionization and magnetospheric transport.
DE: 2730 Magnetosphere--inner
DE: 5737 Magnetospheres (2756)
DE: 5759 Rings and dust
DE: 6265 Planetary rings
DE: 6275 Saturn
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly