Flow of mass and energy in the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn

TLDR

The study presents simple models of the plasma disks around Jupiter and Saturn based on published plasma measurements. The authors compute radial profiles of plasma mass, pressure, thermal and kinetic energy densities, estimate mass outflow and net sources/sinks, and calculate the total energy budget required to sustain the disks. They find that Jupiter’s sulfur‑oxygen disk requires 3–16 TW of energy input, while beyond 8–10 RS in Saturn’s magnetosphere about 75–630 GW must be added, with neutral atoms dominating the inner region.

Abstract

[1] We present simple models of the plasma disks surrounding Jupiter and Saturn based on published measurements of plasma properties. We calculate radial profiles of the distribution of plasma mass, pressure, thermal energy density, kinetic energy density, and energy density of the suprathermal ion populations. We estimate the mass outflow rate as well as the net sources and sinks of plasma. We also calculate the total energy budget of the system, estimating the total amount of energy that must be added to the systems at Jupiter and Saturn, though the causal processes are not understood. We find that the more extensive, massive disk of sulfur- and oxygen-dominated plasma requires a total input of 3–16 TW to account for the observed energy density at Jupiter. At Saturn, neutral atoms dominate over the plasma population in the inner magnetosphere, and local source/loss process dominate over radial transport out to 8 RS, but beyond 8–10 RS about 75–630 GW needs to be added to the system to heat the plasma.