Submitting Campus
Daytona Beach
Department
Physical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
1-16-2018
Abstract/Description
The multifluid Lyon‐Fedder‐Mobarry (MFLFM) global magnetosphere model is used to study the interactions between solar wind and rapidly rotating, internally driven Jupiter magnetosphere. The MFLFM model is the first global simulation of Jupiter magnetosphere that captures the Kelvin‐Helmholtz instability (KHI) in the critically important subsolar region. Observations indicate that Kelvin‐Helmholtz vortices are found predominantly in the dusk sector. Our simulations explain that this distribution is driven by the growth of KHI modes in the prenoon and subsolar region (e.g., >10 local time) that are advected by magnetospheric flows to the dusk sector. The period of density fluctuations at the dusk terminator flank (18 magnetic local time, MLT) is roughly 1.4 h compared with 7.2 h at the dawn flank (6 MLT). Although the simulations are only performed using parameters of the Jupiter's magnetosphere, the results may also have implications for solar wind‐magnetosphere interactions at other corotation‐dominated systems such as Saturn. For instance, the simulated average azimuthal speed of magnetosheath flows exhibit significant dawn‐dusk asymmetry, consistent with recent observations at Saturn. The results are particularly relevant for the ongoing Juno mission and the analysis of dawnside magnetopause boundary crossings for other planetary missions.
Publication Title
Geophysical Research Letters
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076315
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Scholarly Commons Citation
Zhang, B., Delamere, P. A., Ma, X., Burkholder, B., Wiltberger, M., Lyon, J. G., …Sorathia, K. A. (2018). Asymmetric Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at Jupiter’s magnetopause boundary: Implications for corotation-dominated systems. Geophysical Research Letters, 45, 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076315
