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Juno Observations of Heavy Ion Energization During Transient Dipolarizations in Jupiter Magnetotail
Author(s) -
Artemyev A. V.,
Clark G.,
Mauk B.,
Vogt M. F.,
Zhang X.J.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1029/2020ja027933
Subject(s) - physics , jupiter (rocket family) , jovian , magnetosphere , particle acceleration , acceleration , ion , magnetic reconnection , astrophysics , plasma , solar wind , transient (computer programming) , computational physics , atomic physics , astronomy , planet , spacecraft , nuclear physics , saturn , classical mechanics , computer science , quantum mechanics , operating system
Transient magnetic reconnection and associated fast plasma flows led by dipolarization fronts play a crucial role in energetic particle acceleration in planetary magnetospheres. Despite large statistical observations on this phenomenon in the Earth's magnetotail, many important characteristics (e.g., mass or charge dependence of acceleration efficiency and acceleration scaling with the spatial scale of the system) of transient reconnection cannot be fully investigated with the limited parameter range of the Earth's magnetotail. The much larger Jovian magnetodisk, filled by a mixture of various heavy ions and protons, provides a unique opportunity for such investigations. In this study, we use recent Juno observations in Jupiter's magnetosphere to examine the properties of reconnection associated dipolarization fronts and charged particle acceleration. High‐energy fluxes of sulfur, oxygen, and hydrogen ions show clear mass‐dependent acceleration with energy ∼ m 1/3 . We compare Juno observations with similar observations in the Earth's magnetotail and discuss possible mechanism for the observed ion acceleration.