Spectral Signatures of Adiabatic Electron Acceleration at Saturn Through 
Corotation Drift Cancelation

Sun, Y. X.; Roussos, Elias; Krupp, Norbert; Zong, Q. G.; Kollmann, P.; Zhou, X. Z.

doi:10.1029/2019GL084113

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Add to Basket

Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released

Journal Article

Spectral Signatures of Adiabatic Electron Acceleration at Saturn Through Corotation Drift Cancelation

MPS-Authors

Sun, Y. X.
Department Planets and Comets, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons104169

Roussos, Elias
Department Planets and Comets, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max Planck Society;

/persons/resource/persons104038

Krupp, Norbert
Department Planets and Comets, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max Planck Society;

External Resource

No external resources are shared

Fulltext (restricted access)

There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.

Fulltext (public)

There are no public fulltexts stored in PuRe

Supplementary Material (public)

There is no public supplementary material available

Citation

Sun, Y. X., Roussos, E., Krupp, N., Zong, Q. G., Kollmann, P., & Zhou, X. Z. (2019). Spectral Signatures of Adiabatic Electron Acceleration at Saturn Through Corotation Drift Cancelation. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(17-18), 10240-10249. doi:10.1029/2019GL084113.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0005-0B28-3

Abstract

The energetic electron spectra of Saturn's radiation belts are studied using Cassini's 13 years of measurements by the Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument/Low Energy Magnetospheric Measurement System detector. We find that between L shells (L) of 10 and 4.5 the differential flux spectrum of 0.3‐ to 1.6‐MeV electrons evolves from a single power law to two power law functions separated at an energy cutoff (E_c). We show that inside L∼8, E_c has an L shell dependence that tracks consistently the energy of corotation drift cancelation (or resonance) E_CDR, that is, the energy at which magnetic electron drifts and azimuthal corotation cancel, and is not associated with the absorbing effects of Saturn's moons. Ec also deviates from what conservation of the first adiabatic invariant would dictate. Our results verify that electrons around E_CDR can be transported radially very efficiently by variable convective flows, such as those related to the noon‐midnight electric field in Saturn's magnetosphere.