HR: 0830h
AN: P21C-10    [Abstracts]
TI: An Assessment of Electric Currents Flowing in Saturn's Magnetosphere and Their Modeling
AU: * Khurana, K K
EM: kkhurana@igpp.ucla.edu
AF: Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095 United States
AU: Arridge, C S
EM: christopher.arridge@imperial.ac.uk
AF: Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
AU: Dougherty, M K
EM: m.dougherty@imperial.ac.uk
AF: Department of Physics, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
AB: As the magnetic dipole and rotation axes of Saturn are aligned, spacecraft traveling through the Kronian magnetosphere do not experience diurnal changes caused by the motions of the current systems. Therefore, the strengths of current systems can only be assessed by careful modeling. We combine observations from the Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini spacecraft and model the strengths of the currents flowing in various regions of the Kronian magnetosphere. We use techniques and methods used by modelers for the earth's magnetosphere to develop new models of Saturn's magnetospheric field. We use Tsyganenko and Peredo [1994] models of disk-shaped current sheets to model the magnetic field of Saturn's current sheet. The tilt, and hinging of the current sheet is introduced by using the general deformation technique [Tsyganenko, 1998]. The shielding field from the magnetopause for the equatorial current sheet and the internal field is specified by Cartesian and cylindrical harmonics, respectively. Additional modules specify the field of the radial current system which reinforces corotation on the outflowing plasma. and the interconnection field between solar wind IMF and the magnetosphere. A comparison of model field with the observation is provided. Finally, we extract the profiles of the currents from the modeled parameters.
DE: 2708 Current systems (2409)
DE: 2764 Plasma sheet
DE: 2778 Ring current
DE: 5443 Magnetospheres (2756)
SC: Planetary Sciences [P]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly