Search

The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission is the first large-class (L1) mission of ESA Cosmic Vision. JUICE will be launched in April 2023 with an arrival at Jupiter in 2031 and at least four years making detailed observations of Jupiter’s magnetosphere and of three of its largest moons (Ganymede, Callisto and Europa). The Radio and Plasma Wave Investigation (RPWI) consortium will carry the most advanced set of electric and magnetic fields sensors ever flown in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, which will allow to characterize the radio emission and plasma wave environment of Jupiter and its icy moons. Here we present the scientific objectives and the technical features of the Search Coil Magnetometer (SCM) of RPWI. SCM will provide for the first time three-dimensional measurements of magnetic field fluctuations in the frequency range 0.1 Hz – 20 kHz within Jupiter’s magnetosphere. High sensitivity (~10 fT / √Hz at 1 kHz) will be assured by combining an optimized (20 cm long) magnetic transducer with a low-noise (4 nV / √Hz) ASIC pre-amplifier. Perturbations by the spacecraft are strongly reduced by accommodating SCM at about 10 m away from the spacecraft on the JUICE magnetometer boom. The combination of high sensitivity and high cleanliness of SCM measurements will allow unpreceded studies of electromagnetic fluctuations down to plasma kinetic scales, in particular in key regions such as the magnetopause, the auroral region and the magnetotail current sheet of Ganymede’s own magnetosphere which JUICE will orbit for many months. This will lead to important advances in understanding how fundamental plasma processes such as magnetic reconnection, turbulence and particle energization occur in Jupiter’s plasma environment.

International audience; Since the 9th of July, the MMS fleet of four satellites have evolved into a tetrahedral configuration with an average inter-satellite distance of 160 km and an apogee of 12 earth radii on the dusk side. In this study we report on ultra-low (1 mHz to ~10 Hz) and very-low (10 Hz to ~ 4 kHz) frequency wave activity measured by the four satellites during several crossings of the dusk equatorial magnetopause. Since the Larmor radius of magnetosheath protons is of the order of 50 km, this inter-satellite distance allows us to investigate in detail the physics of the magnetopause at proton scales including current structures related to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability as well as other energy transfer processes. From wave polarization analysis, we characterize the different types of emissions and discuss different mechanisms of heating and acceleration of particles. In particular, we focus on the electron heating by kinetic Alfvén waves and lower hybrid waves and the electron acceleration by oblique whistler mode waves, which have been suggested as possible mechanisms from previous Cluster and THEMIS measurements.

International audience; The MMS mission was successfully launched on March 13, 2015 into an equatorial, highly elliptical orbit with a low altitude perigee and an apogee of 12 earth radii. Each satellite is equipped by a search-coil magnetometer (SCM) which measures the three components of the magnetic field fluctuations with a nominal frequency range from 1 Hz to 6 kHz. During the past months of the commissioning phase, the SCM waveforms have usually been gathered at 128 or 256 samples per second (S/s). Yet in a few cases, burst data corresponding to 8192 S/s were obtained. Since the launch, the orbit apogee has moved from dawn to dusk. These various conditions allow us to present high frequency wave measurements and wave polarization analysis in the dawn magnetosphere flank as well as associated with local and global dipolarization events in the night side. Furthermore, the SCM is not saturated due to a large amplitude spin modulation even at perigee since the MMS spin frequency is low (50 mHz). Thanks to the onboard spectra computed by the digital signal processor, we are able to continuously monitor the magnetic wave activity through the full SCM frequency range all along the orbit and notably in the radiation belt region. Thus some typical figures of the wave activity in the inner magnetosphere are also briefly described.