Browsing by Author "Gong, Bin"

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    Overview of Jovian Aurora's observed features and its possible origin
    (2003) Gong, Bin; Hill, Thomas W.
    As on Earth, Jupiter's auroral emission comes from the upward Birkeland currents. The VIP4 magnetic field model maps the main oval to the middle magnetosphere (r ∼ 30 RJ). However, the interpretation of the observed features of the jovian aurora and its link to the middle magnetosphere remains an open question. This thesis reviews the main observational features and existing models of Jupiter's aurora. After comparing the merits and disadvantages of each model, we outline future possible improvements of the models.
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    Variations of Jovian aurora induced by changes in solar wind dynamic pressure
    (2005) Gong, Bin; Hill, Thomas W.
    The jovian aurora contains a persistent main oval encircling each magnetic pole, which is associated with the upward field-aligned currents in the corotation enforcement current system. It has been suggested by two recent studies that the brightness of the main oval should become temporarily dimmer ∼ 1 hr after arrival of a shock wave in the solar wind, compressing the magnetosphere abruptly, because the difference between the angular velocity of the plasma in the magnetosphere and the rigid planetary rotational speed becomes smaller. But recent observations at Jupiter and Saturn have reported the opposite: the auroral oval brightens, and moves poleward, after the arrival of a solar wind shock. In this thesis, I will quantitatively include the flywheel effect of the neutral gas in the ionosphere in the coupling current system to explain this discrepancy and show that the corotation enforcement current should reverse and strengthen after a compression, and thereby temporarily cause the main oval to become brighter and move poleward. I will also show the differences between the night side and the day side in steady state and after a compression event by applying two different magnetic field models fitted from observations, and try to qualitatively explain the dawn-dusk asymmetry by introducing a region-1 current system analogous to that at Earth, which arises from the detailed interaction between solar wind and magnetosphere. Generally, I expect the day side sector of the main oval to brighten more than the night side sector, and the dawn sector to brighten more than the dusk sector.