Micro- and macro- signatures of energetic charged particles in planetary magnetospheres

Abstract

Satellites orbiting within the magnetospheres of the giant planets are effective absorbers of trapped radiation, forming the characteristic and dominant structure of the radiation belts. The study of satellite absorption signatures observed by charged particle detectors involves simulating the detector response to particle distributions that include the effects of the time- and longitude-dependent absorption, guiding center drifts, and diffusion. The calculations are most easily carried out by separating solutions of the transport equation into time-dependent and -independent parts, that typically lead to small and large scale features called micro- and macro- signatures respectively. In this paper, methods for calculating the two types of signatures are described, and applied to the case of electron absorption by Saturn's satellite Mimas. The results are compared with data from Pioneer 11 and Voyager 2.

Files

Additional details