Discovery Metadata System

Summary

Abstract:
Radiation belts are hazardous regions found around several of the planets in our Solar System. They consist of very hot, electrically charged particles that are trapped in the magnetic field of the planet. At Saturn the most important way to heat these particles has for many years been thought to involve the particles drifting closer towards the planet. This paper adds to the emerging idea at Saturn that a different way to heat the particles is also possible where the heating is done by waves, in a similar way to what we find at the Earth. This work is reported in the paper "Rapid electron acceleration in low density regions of Saturn's radiation belt by whistler mode chorus waves" by E.E. Woodfield et al., 2019. The data provided here enable reconstruction of all the figures in the paper.

The research leading to these results has received funding from:

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, grants NE/R016038/1 and NE/R016445/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), UK, grants ST/I001727/1 and ST/M00130X/1.
NASA grants NNX11AM36G and NNX16AI47G.
The research at the University of Iowa was supported by NASA through Contract 1415150 with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
European Council (EC) grant H2020 637302.

Keywords:
Radiation Belt, Saturn, magnetosphere, plasma waves, wave-particle interactions