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The Jupiter encounter by the Cassini spacecraft in late 2000 and early 2001 unveiled persistent properties of Jupiter's hectometric (HOM) radiation originating along auroral magnetic field lines in the polar regions. One of the unique properties of the HOM dynamic spectrum, known as attenuation lanes, appears as rotationally modulated, well-defined regions of lowered intensity, flanked by regions of enhancement. These lanes seem to be the result of refraction of radio waves in a high-density medium–either caused by Case (i) enhanced density in the magnetic L-shell connected to Io's orbit or Case (ii) in the Io plasma torus itself or both. In this paper, we investigate the HOM ray paths of 0.5–3.0 MHz emissions with various cone half-angles in the continuous radio longitudes generating at the magnetic L-value equal to 30. We use bi-kappa particle distributions to derive diffusive equilibrium distributions of density in the Io plasma torus. The enhanced density irregularities along the Io flux shell “ribbon” region can be described with a Gaussian density distribution of a maximum density n[0] and breadth (half-width of the distribution across the flux shell) σ. As a result, we found that the interpretation of Case (i) can be accounted for by the attenuation lanes which appear for all cone half-angles, and the reasonable flux shell density n[0] is, on top of specific latitude-dependent density from the diffusive equilibrium model, estimated as 100 cm[−3] with the half-width σ = 5.0 Io radii.

Observations of persistent structural features within Jovian hectometric (HOM) radio emission have been made with the Galileo spacecraft. Two well-defined sinusoidal-shaped “band” features of reduced emission intensity and occurrence probability exist at all Jovian longitudes and nearly cover the entire spectrum of HOM radio emission from ∼500 kHz to 3000 kHz. These two sinusoidal lanes have a bandwidth of 200–400 kHz and are 180° out of phase with one another, suggesting that they are a result of HOM radio emission propagation processes from opposite hemispheres. These features become more apparent when presented as intensity or occurrence probability spectrograms added together over multiple Jovian rotations. Enhancements in the HOM intensity and occurrence are seen along the edges of one of the observed sinusoidal lane features which may indicate caustic surfaces due to refraction along the propagation path. We present some simple ray tracing analyses to show that refraction from density enhancements in the Io torus flux tube may explain some of the observations. Using this simple method, we approximate the density enhancements in the Io flux tube to be 100 cm−3.

A well defined sinusoidal-shaped “band” of reduced emission intensity exists within Jovian HOM from 500 kHz to 3 MHz at all Jovian longitudes as observed by the Galileo spacecraft. A less prominent sinusoidal-shaped band feature exists in the same frequency range but is 180° out of phase with the more prominent feature. We used a multiple Jovian rotation spectrogram technique to fully display both bands and found that these sinusoidal-shaped features are the source of the “lanes” previously studied in Voyager and Ulysses data. Our extension of the simple straight-line ray model by Gurnett et al. [1998] provides a qualitative explanation for the observed features. We found that the two sinusoidal bands show an asymmetry about the longitude of the northern tip of the magnetic dipole (202° CML). Enhancements of emission can be seen along the edges of the bands which may be interpreted as caustic surfaces.

Jovian hectometric radio emission (HOM: 300–3000 kHz) has a number of persistent structural features associated with it as observed by the Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Ulysses, and Galileo spacecraft for specific jovigraphic latitudes (−4° to +7.1°) and local times (0.3 to 10.5 hours). Most notable are the presence of HOM emission between 270° and 120° central meridian longitude (CML) and the region of reduced emission intensity (a “gap”) between 120° and 270°. We displayed the Ulysses and Galileo data using time-frequency occurrence probability spectrograms and show that the observed HOM emission features are nearly identical to those observed by the Voyager spacecraft. This implies that the HOM structure is long-lived and fixed in its longitudinal position within the Jovian magnetosphere. HOM structure depends on small changes in the observer's jovigraphic latitude, so the different jovigraphic latitudes of the spacecraft were used to probe the HOM beam structure. Prom this analysis we found that the CML width of the main HOM gap is directly correlated to the latitude of the spacecraft. We conclude that the latitudinal thickness of the HOM beam is about 12°, extending from −5° to +7° magnetic latitude.

Observations of Jupiter's low frequency radio emissions collected over one month intervals before and after each Voyager encounter were analyzed. Compilations of occurrence probability, average power flux density and average sense of circular polarization are presented as a function of central meridian longitude, phase of Io, and frequency. The results are compared with ground based observations. The necessary geometrical conditions are preferred polarization sense for Io-related decametric emission observed by Voyager from above both the dayside and nightside hemispheres are found to be essentially the same as are observed in Earth based studies. On the other hand, there is a clear local time dependence in the Io-independent decametric emission. Io appears to have an influence on average flux density of the emission down to below 2 MHz. The average power flux density spectrum of Jupiter's emission has a broad peak near 9MHz. Integration of the average spectrum over all frequencies gives a total radiated power for an isotropic source of 4 x 10 to the 11th power W.

A model is presented that accounts for several features of the dynamic spectral arcs observed at decameter wavelengths by the planetary radio astronomy experiment on Voyagers 1 and 2. It is shown that refraction of an extraordinary mode wave initially excited and nearly orthogonal to the local magnetic field is significantly influenced by the local plasma density. The source of the radiation is on the L = 6 flux, and the emission cone angle of the sheet is chosen to vary with frequency so that it is relatively small at both high and low frequencies while about 80 deg at intermediate frequencies. This functional dependence of cone angle on frequency appears to be consistent with estimates of refraction of the ordinary mode in a source region where the electron density is greater than a few hundred per cu cm.

Jupiter's hectometric (HOM) wavelength radio emissions have been detected by the planetary radio astronomy instruments onboard the two Voyager spacecraft. The emission is surprisingly similar in morphology but opposite in polarization to the decametric (DAM) wavelength Jovian radio noise that has been observed with ground-based telescopes for more than two decades. The HOM emissions are predominantly left-hand polarized and their occurrence is modulated by the rotation phase of the planet but not by the location of the satellite Io. Several possible explanations for the behavior of the HOM emission are examined, but none of them are completely satisfactory.

The longevity of a number of inverted-V electron precipitation events was measured by comparing electron distributions acquired from the two Dynamics Explorer spacecraft during close proximity passes through the southern auroral zone. Common events were identified in the two data sets for time separations up to 18 min. The maximum energy attained within an inverted-V sometimes varied between observations indicating growth or decay of the event. The number of events increasing in energy was roughly equal to those exhibiting decreasing energy, suggesting similar time scales for growth and decay. Observations closely spaced in time (minutes) had some events not in common, implying either a sudden cessation of the event or a limited spatial extent precluding observation by one of the two spacecraft due to its orbital displacement. A statistical study of 28 close proximity passes showed that the number of matched inverted-V events exceeded those which were unmatched. This was not true for comparisons of random pairs of electron distribution plots for the two spacecraft. This implies that the close proximity events observed by both spacecraft were not just random coincidences.