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Saturn Plasma Sources and Associated Transport Processes

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Abstract

This article reviews the different sources of plasma for Saturn’s magnetosphere, as they are known essentially from the scientific results of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan. At low and medium energies, the main plasma source is the \(\mathrm{H}_{2}\mathrm{O}\) cloud produced by the “geyser” activity of the small satellite Enceladus. Impact ionization of this cloud occurs to produce on the order of 100 kg/s of fresh plasma, a source which dominates all the other ones: Titan (which produces much less plasma than anticipated before the Cassini mission), the rings, the solar wind (a poorly known source due to the lack of quantitative knowledge of the degree of coupling between the solar wind and Saturn’s magnetosphere), and the ionosphere. At higher energies, energetic particles are produced by energy diffusion and acceleration of lower energy plasma produced by the interchange instabilities induced by the rapid rotation of Saturn, and possibly, for the highest energy range, by contributions from the CRAND process acting inside Saturn’s magnetosphere. Discussion of the transport and acceleration processes acting on these plasma sources shows the importance of rotation-induced radial transport and energization of the plasma, and also shows how much the unexpected planetary modulation of essentially all plasma parameters of Saturn’s magnetosphere remains an unexplained mystery.

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Acknowledgements

M. Blanc wishes to thank Nicolas André for enlightening discussions, his careful reading of the manuscript and his suggestions for improvement; D.J. Andrews acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board (Rymdstylresan); A.J. Coates acknowledges support via the UCL-MSSL consolidated grant from STFC, UK; D.C. Hamilton is supported by the NASA Cassini mission through subcontract with JHU/APL; C.M. Jackman was funded by a Science and Technology Facilities Council Ernest Rutherford Fellowship; X. Jia is supported by the NASA Cassini Data Analysis Program through grant NNX12AK34G, and by the NASA Cassini mission under contract 1409449 with JPL; H.T. Smith is supported by the NASA Contract NAS5-97271 Task Order 003, the NASA Cassini Data Analysis Program and the NASA Outer Planets Research Program.

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Blanc, M., Andrews, D.J., Coates, A.J. et al. Saturn Plasma Sources and Associated Transport Processes. Space Sci Rev 192, 237–283 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-015-0172-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-015-0172-9

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