Modeling the Europa plasma torus

Abstract

The existence of a torus of plasma generated by sputtering from Jupiter's satellite Europa has long been suspected but never yet convincingly demonstrated. Temperature profiles from Voyager plasma observations indicate the presence of hot, possibly freshly picked‐up ions in the general vicinity of the orbit of Europa, which may be interpreted as evidence for a local plasma torus. Studies of ion partitioning in the outer regions of the Io torus reveal that the oxygen to sulfur mixing ratio varies with radial distance; this may indicate that oxygen‐rich matter is injected from a non‐Io source, most probably Europa. We have constructed a quantitative model of a plasma torus near the orbit of Europa which takes into account plasma input from the Io torus, sputtering from the surface of Europa, a great number of ionization and charge exchange processes, and plasma loss by diffusive transport. When the transport time is chosen so that the model's total number density in consistent with the observed total plasma density, the contribution from Europa is found to be significant although not dominant. The model predicts in detail the ion composition, charge states, and the relative fractions of hot Europa‐generated and (presumed) cold Io‐generated ions. The results are generally consistent with observations from Voyager and can in principle (subject to limitations of data coverage) be confirmed in more detail by Ulysses.