Auroral X-ray emission at Jupiter: Depth effects

Abstract

Auroral X-ray emissions from Jupiter with a total power of about 1 GW have been observed by the Einstein Observatory, Roentgen satellite, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and XMM-Newton. Previous theoretical studies have shown that precipitating energetic sulfur and oxygen ions can produce the observed X-rays. This study presents the results of a hybrid Monte Carlo (MC) model for sulfur and oxygen ion precipitation at high latitudes, looks at differences with the continuous slow-down model, and compares the results to synthetic spectra fitted to observations. We concentrate on the effects of altitude on the observed spectrum. The opacity of the atmosphere to the outgoing X-ray photons is found to be important for incident ion energies greater than about 1.2 MeV per nucleon for both sulfur and oxygen. Model spectra are calculated for intensities with and without any opacity effects. These synthetic spectra were compared with the results shown by Hui et al. (2010) which fit Chandra X-ray Observatory observations for the north and south Jovian auroral emissions. Quenching of long-lived excited states of the oxygen ions is found to be important. Opacity considerably diminishes the outgoing X-ray intensity calculated, particularly when the viewing geometry is not favorable. © 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.