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Variation in Pedersen Conductance near Jupiter’s Main Emission Aurora: Comparison of Hubble Space Telescope and Galileo Measurements
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  • Matthew J. Rutala,
  • John T. Clarke,
  • Marissa F. Vogt,
  • Jonathan D. Nichols
Matthew J. Rutala
School of Cosmic Physics, DIAS Dunsink Observatory, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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John T. Clarke
Boston University
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Marissa F. Vogt
Boston University
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Jonathan D. Nichols
University of Leicester
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Abstract

We present the first large-scale statistical survey of the Jovian main emission (ME) to map auroral properties from their ionospheric locations out into the equatorial plane of the magnetosphere, where they are compared directly to in-situ spacecraft measurements. We use magnetosphere-ionosphere (MI) coupling theory to calculate currents from the auroral brightness as measured with the Hubble Space Telescope and from plasma flow speeds measured in-situ with the Galileo spacecraft. The effective Pedersen conductance of the ionosphere (\(\Sigma_P^*\)) remains a free parameter in this comparison. We first show that the field-aligned currents per radian of azimuth calculated from the auroral observations, found to be \(I_{||}=9.54^{+11.5}_{-6.35}\) MA rad-1 and \(I_{||}=10.64^{+11.1}_{-6.11}\) MA rad-1 in the north and south, respectively, are consistent with previous results. Then, we calculate the Pedersen conductance from the combined datasets, and find it ranges from \(0.02<\Sigma_P^*<2.26\) mho overall with averages of \(0.14^{+0.31}_{-0.08}\) mho in the north and \(0.14^{+0.26}_{-0.09}\) mho in the south. Taking the currents and effective Pedersen conductance together, we find that the average ME intensity and plasma flow speed in the middle magnetosphere (10-30 RJ) RJ) are broadly consistent with one another under MI coupling theory. We find evidence for peaks in the distribution of \(\Sigma_P^*\) near 7, 12, and 14 hours magnetic local time (MLT). This variation in Pedersen conductance with MLT may indicate the importance of conductance in modulating MLT- and local-time-asymmetries in the ME, including the apparent subcorotation of some auroral features within the ME.
21 Feb 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
04 Mar 2024Published in ESS Open Archive