Auroral spirals at Saturn

Abstract

We report observations of auroral spirals at Saturn propagating from midnight to noon via dawn, based on Cassini/UVIS measurements. The aurora during that sequence is observed for the first time to consist of detached features swirling as they propagate from dawn to early afternoon. The features have a diameter of 6000 km in the ionosphere, which would correspond to 12 to 15 RS wide plasma regions in the magnetosphere. Simultaneous ENA enhancements are observed; however, they do not show a clear spiral form. We estimate the velocity of the UV auroral features to decrease from 85% of rigid corotation (28/h) near the equatorward edge to 68% of rigid corotation (22/h) in the poleward edge. We discuss two possible scenarios which could explain the generation of the auroral spirals. First, we suggest that the auroral spirals could be related to large dynamic hot populations which create regions with strong velocity gradients. Alternatively, a less possible theory could be that the auroral spirals are related to field line deformation from the magnetosphere to the ionosphere, similar to the scenario proposed to explain auroral spirals at Earth. Such field line twist can happen for a configuration where the magnetospheric source region is located between a pair of plasma flow vortices.