Abstract
The spatial and time characterisation of trapped charged particle
trajectories in magnetospheres has been extensively studied using dipole
magnetic field structures. Such studies have allowed the calculation of
spatial quantities such as equatorial loss cone size as a function of
radial distance, the location of the mirror points along particular
field lines (’L shells’) as a function of the particle’s equatorial
pitch angle, and time quantities such as the bounce period and drift
period as a function of the radial distance and the particle’s pitch
angle at the equator. In this study, we present analogous calculations
for the ‘disc-like’ field structure associated with the giant
rotation-dominated magnetosphere of Jupiter as described by the
UCL/Achilleos-Guio-Arridge (UCL/AGA) magnetodisc model. We discuss the
effect of the magnetodisc field on various particle parameters, and make
a comparison with the analogous motion in a dipole field.