A&A 366, 343-350 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20000100
C. H. Barrow1 - A. Lecacheux2 - R. J. MacDowall3
Received 29 August 2000 / Accepted 3 November 2000
Abstract
During 1994 and into 1996, Ulysses was at distances of 5 AU or more from
Jupiter and travelling from south to north of the ecliptic plane. At
these distances, the jovian broadband radio emission (bKOM) was only received
occasionally by the Unified Radio and Plasma Experiment (URAP) on board
the Ulysses spacecraft. The signals were generally weak and much care is
needed to find and to identify the events.
It is found that the visibility and polarization of the bKOM appears to
depend upon the jovicentric latitude of Ulysses (
)
at the time of observation. All but two of the bKOM events observed
when Ulysses was at northern jovicentric latitudes were
predominantly right-hand (RH) polarized while events recorded
when the spacecraft was at southerly jovicentric latitudes were
all predominantly LH polarized, the change taking place somewhere
between
,
close to
jovimagnetic latitude.
Compared with previous observations of the bKOM, made by spacecraft
considerably closer to Jupiter, the present occurrence probabilities
were lower for the LH polarized events although the distribution was
similar. For the RH polarized events, however, the distribution was
different, the so-called main peak being absent or, perhaps, displaced
towards a larger central meridian longitude.
It is shown that, in a two-dimensional model, if cyclotron maser emission
in a dipole magnetic field is assumed for Jupiter, the detection of bKOM
at a given frequency by a spacecraft at a specified location, determines a
unique value of
for an assumed value of L and a given field model.
This is not true for a three-dimensional model.
The present results raise questions
on the application of the cyclotron maser theory to bKOM emission.
Key words: space vehicles - planets and satellites: Jupiter - radio continuum: solar system
Observations by the Radio Astronomy Explorer (RAE-1) and the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform 6 (IMP 6) gave the first indications of jovian radio emission at frequencies close to 1 MHz (Brown 1974; Desch & Carr 1974; Kaiser 1977). The Voyager Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) experiment established the existence of four components in the low-frequency radio spectrum of Jupiter; three components were distinguished at frequencies below the critical frequency of Earth's ionosphere, in addition to the decametre-wave radiation (DAM), already well-known from over thirty years of systematic ground-based observations. The low-frequency components were classified as a hectometre-wave component (HOM) and two kilometre-wave components, a narrow-band emission (nKOM) and a broad-band emission (bKOM). The characteristics of each of these components have been reviewed by Alexander et al. (1981), Boischot et al. (1981), Carr et al. (1983), Kaiser & Desch (1984), Leblanc & Daigne (1985), Boischot (1988) and Leblanc (1988).
The present paper is concerned with observations of the bKOM made by the Ulysses Unified Radio and Plasma (URAP) experiment (Stone et al. 1992a). In a previous study, reported briefly at the Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets conference in August, 1999, (Barrow et al. 2001) there were indications of the influence of the jovicentric latitude of Ulysses on observations of the visibility and polarization of the bKOM, beyond the inferences that could be made from observations close to encounter in 1992. This effect has now been studied further and is reported here in greater detail.
The receivers cover two bands, from 1.25 to 48.5 kHz (lo-band) and
from 52 to 940 kHz (hi-band). Hi-band operates in 12 channels,
approximately logarithmically spaced, each frequency being
determined by one of twelve crystal local oscillators. The
intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier frequency is 10.7 MHz, the
dynamic range about 70 dB and the bandwidth 3 kHz. Lo-band operates
in 64 channels, arithmetically spaced at 0.75 kHz intervals. The IF
amplifier frequency is 432.25 kHz, the dynamic range about 70 dB
and the bandwidth 750 Hz. The receivers are connected to a 72 m
wire antenna perpendicular to the spacecraft spin axis and to a
7.5 m monopole antenna along the spin axis. The spacecraft and the
antenna system spin with a 12 s period. The inputs from the
antennas can be combined to synthesize an equivalent dipole tilted
with respect to the spin axis. By combining the inputs with
suitable phase differences the polarization of the incoming waves
can be determined (Manning & Fainberg 1980; Stone et al. 1992b). Polarization can only be calculated from hi-band data.
The sensitivity, when used in the separation
mode (Stone et al. 1992a), is about
Jy at 100 kHz. In the summation mode (SUM), for
polarization measurements, the sensitivity is down by about 10 dB.
Polarization measurements of the radiation have been used to improve
existing knowledge of the source location and the beaming characteristics
of the bKOM.
URAP observations were examined for the period January 1, 1994, to
March 1, 1996, (940101 to 960301, a total of 790 days).
During this period, Ulysses was at distances of about 4.7 to 7.2 AU
from Jupiter and travelling from south to north of the ecliptic plane
(Fig. 1), the jovicentric latitude of the spacecraft
changing from about
to
.
The bKOM was only received occasionally and the number of events
suitable for study was further limited by the considerations
outlined in the following two paragraphs.
![]() |
Figure 1: Trajectories of Ulysses and Jupiter. The heavy line represents the Ulysses' trajectory when the observations were made |
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At distances greater than 5 AU, the problem of finding and identifying the bKOM requires much care. No formal listing of the jovian events observed exists for the spacecraft. At these distances the bKOM emission is generally weak and often lost in solar emission, auroral kilometric radiation (AKR) and background noise. Events cannot be identified in a sequence of spectra for several days. Each day has to be searched carefully, the sensitivity of the spectra needs to be enhanced and the background may need to be changed. Identification is by the characteristic spectral form and polarization of the emission as well as the appearance in simultaneous time series at several different frequencies where non-characteristic frequency drifts can easily be recognized. For example, the drift and the absence of strong polarization of a weak solar type III burst will distinguish it from a weak bKOM event. The selection of events for study is further limited by the need for polarization data which is only obtainable when the receiver is operating in SUM mode (Stone et al. 1992a). Only 57 events, recorded over 51 days, eventually met these criteria.
We also recall that, immediately after Jupiter encounter in 1992,
when Ulysses was at an extreme southerly jovicentric latitude
(
), events showing some similarity to
both the HOM and the bKOM were found to occur at different frequencies
to those typical of previous observations by Voyager
(Barrow & Lecacheux 1995).
These emissions, arbitrarily called HOMa and bKOMa, may also be present
as another confusing feature of the spectra studied here as well as
the "unidentified emission'' reported in the same paper.
It is possible, therefore, that some very weak bKOM events may have occurred
and passed unnoticed.
Only bKOM events which could be identified with a good degree of certainty
and for which polarization data are available have been considered.
Event occurrence times could be measured from the spectra or from
single frequency intensity-time plots. The maximum estimated
uncertainty was about
min or
of CML.
System III Central Meridian Longitudes (CML) for Ulysses are taken
from the NASA SEDR file and corrected for the light-travel time from Jupiter
to the spacecraft.
![]() |
Figure 2: Hi- and lo-band Ulysses/URAP spectra for 950611 (DOY 94527) |
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![]() |
Figure 3: Hi-band Ulysses/URAP spectra for 950611 (DOY 94527). The four panels, from top to bottom, show spectra of total intensity, degree of polarization, azimuth of the direction of origin of the emission with respect to the direction of the Sun, and modulation index. The numbers along the top of the first spectrum give the jovian rotation number (zero on 820101) and CML values, corrected for the light-travel time from Jupiter to the spacecraft. All of the jovian emission is RH polarized, notably the bKOM event beginning close to 1630 UT |
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Typical spectra, taken on 950611 (DOY 94527) when Ulysses was
at jovicentric latitude
,
are shown in Figs. 2 and 3. In Fig. 2, both the URAP hi-band and lo-band
spectra are shown. These spectra were used to
find and to identify the bKOM events.
The time resolution of both hi- and lo-band data sets is 144 s.
For the lo-band spectrum, three adjacent frequencies are averaged to remove
most of the modulation imposed due to the spinning spacecraft-antenna system.
Three frequencies are collected in six seconds, which is approximately
one-half of the spacecraft spin period. In hi-band, the data at each
frequency are collected for 12 s; these are averaged together and so
spin-modulation should not be present in these data.
Note that much of the typical structure of the bKOM has
been smoothed out by the effects of temporal broadening
due to scattering over the distance travelled by the radiation
through the interplanetary medium (Barrow et al. 1999).
The polarization is represented as a spectrum of the degree of circular
polarization
shown in the second panel of Fig. 3.
The total intensity
measured by URAP is presented in the top panel. Then
,
is given by
| = | (1) |
In the third panel, the azimuth, with respect to the direction of the Sun, gave an additional identification criterion and, in particular, distinguished jovian emission from possible saturnian (SKR) emission (Lecacheux & Aubier 1997). The position of each planet is indicated by the letters "J'' or "S'' adjacent to the colour scale. The modulation index, shown in the fourth panel, is essentially an indication of the certainty of identification. The numbers above the top panel represent the rotation number of Jupiter, taken as zero on January 1, 1982, and the CML, corrected for light-travel time from Jupiter to Ulysses.
It can be seen that a bKOM event was observed by Ulysses
to begin close to 1630 UT (CML
).
A weaker event occurred at about 0730 UT. Both of these events were RH
polarized (i.e.
;
the emission originated in the northern
hemisphere of Jupiter)
and were separated by a time interval roughly equal to the rotation period
of the planet, a little less than 10h.
Two other periods of RH polarized activity, which may have been bKOMa emission,
can be seen at about 0400 and 1400 UT. These two events are also separated
by a time interval close to the rotation period of the planet.
The azimuth spectrum shows that all of these emissions
originated from the direction of Jupiter.
Note that the interplanetary medium will cause scattering effects in the emission (Barrow et al. 1999). Faraday rotation will tend to depolarize linearly polarized radiation but it will only cause phase differences in circularly polarized radiation. Thus the actual sense of polarization will not be changed by scattering (Woan 1997, 1999).
All of the days when bKOM events were observed by Ulysses are shown in
Fig. 4a, where it can be seen that,
during the period studied (940101 to 960301), the RH polarized bKOM was only
observed when the spacecraft was in northerly jovicentric latitudes while,
with the exception of two events, LH polarized bKOM was only observed
when the spacecraft was in southerly jovicentric latitudes.
The two exceptional events both occurred close to crossing of the
jovicentric equatorial plane and in both
cases the jovimagnetic latitude was southerly.
Several possible bKOMa events were also recorded.
In Fig. 4b, the same days are plotted against the jovimagnetic latitude
of Ulysses at the nearest hour to the event time and these, of course, show a
spread of some
corresponding to the
tilt of
the jovian magnetic field as the planet rotates.
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Figure 4: Days on which bKOM events were observed by Ulysses, during the period 940101 to 960301 (DOY 94001 to 94790), against a) jovicentric latitude and b) jovimagnetic latitude of the spacecraft |
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There was no event recorded during the 31 days between 950420 and 950521
when the change in polarization from LH to RH took place and so we can only
say that this occurred somewhere between
.
The corresponding jovimagnetic latitudes were, respectively,
and
.
Figure 4b shows that the changeover corresponds to the change in jovimagnetic
latitude of Ulysses from south to north.
The absence of activity during this period may be an effect of the
jovicentric latitude of Ulysses but it could also be due to the increased
difficulty of identification of the bKOM while the spacecraft is
relatively close to the Sun.
Normalised occurrence probabilities for LH and RH polarized emission are shown in Figs. 5a and 5b, respectively. It can be seen that, although the occurrence probabilities are lower, the LH polarized distribution is essentially the same as that found previously at 52 kHz (Barrow & Lecacheux 1995). However, the RH polarized distribution differs in that the so-called main source peak, found in Voyager observations by Leblanc & Daigne (1985), is either absent or, perhaps, displaced towards a larger CML.
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Figure 5: Normalised occurrence probability of the bKOM for a) LH polarization, and b) RH polarization |
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There have been a number of suggestions regarding the bKOM emission process
(for example, Jones 1988; Leblanc 1988).
More recently, there has been evidence that the bKOM, like the HOM,
may be due to the Cyclotron-Maser instability (CMI)
with dominant emission in the R-X mode and source regions
on L-shells between 9 and 15 (Ladreiter et al. 1994 and
the references therein).
The emission is beamed into a radiation pattern
in the form of a thin-walled hollow cone with apex at the source
and axis tangent to the magnetic field direction. Propagation is in the R-X
mode at frequencies equal to or just above the local gyrofrequency
.
An event is seen as continuous emission due to radiation from the edges
of a succession of CMI cones, distributed over a range of CMLs, and
rotating with the planet.
In the discussion that follows we will assume that the bKOM is generated
from tilted dipole field lines of the order of
.
Beaming can be represented by the two-dimensional geometry of the
electron cyclotron frequency surface superimposed upon a dipolar
jovian magnetic field, as sketched in Fig. 6, where the point S represents
a bKOM source (i.e. the apex of an emission cone) in the southern magnetic
hemisphere and the northern edge of the cone is directed towards the
spacecraft when it is in a northerly magnetic latitude.
If the gyrofrequency at S is
in MHz and the magnetic field B
is in Gauss, the magnetic field geometry is given by
Eqs. (3) and (4), following Chapman & Bartels (1951),
and L is defined by Eq. (5).
It is evident that Eq. (6) follows from Fig. 6. Then we have,
| = | 2.8B | (2) | |
| r3 | = | ![]() |
(3) |
| = | (4) | ||
| L | = | (5) | |
| = | (6) |
It follows, from Eq. (6) that, in the two-dimensional model,
the detection of bKOM at a given frequency
by a spacecraft at a given
location specified by
,
determines a unique value of
for an assumed value of L and a given field model. This is not true
for the three-dimensional model.
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Figure 6:
Two dimensional beaming geometry for bKOM emission in a dipole magnetic
field from a source on L-shell |
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It should be noted that the durations of most of the bKOM events
considered here and shown in Fig. 4a,
were relatively short; generally a little over an hour
and considerably less than typical durations observed closer
to the planet (see, for example, Barrow & Lecacheux 1995; their Fig. 3).
As Jupiter rotates, an observer sees the event as emission from a succession
of CMI cones distributed over a range of CMLs.
As the cone half-angles have, in general, been found by various workers
to be large, estimates ranging from
to
(Ladreiter et al. 1994) and, as Jupiter rotates at a rate
of about
/hr, an event might be expected to last for some
two or three hours as seen in observations close to Jupiter.
It seems likely, therefore, that the shorter duration events seen at
these greater distances from the planet and presented here
may be due to emission from sectors of the extreme northern or southern edges
of the CMI cones.
Also, if the source is on L = 15, where this cuts the
kHz surface,
the source will be at a jovimagnetic latitude of about
(north or
south) and at a distance of some
from the planet which would be outside
of the Io torus. Thus refraction effects in the torus should be significantly
reduced.
In Fig. 7 we show the variation of
with L, for assumed values of
and
kHz.
In Fig. 8, we plot the values of
calculated for the events shown in
Fig. 4, again assuming values of
kHz and L = 15,
(a) for a source in the northern hemisphere of Jupiter and
(b) for a source in the southern hemisphere. Figures 7 and 8
demonstrate the implication of Eq. (6),
that there can be no unique value for
that does not involve assumed
values of L and
.
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Figure 7:
Calculated values of emission cone half-angle |
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We have seen in Fig. 4a that, in general,
LH polarization was observed when the
spacecraft was at southerly jovicentric latitudes and RH polarization
was observed when the spacecraft was at northerly jovicentric latitudes.
Commensurate with this, it can be seen in Fig. 4b that all of
the corresponding jovimagnetic latitudes were, respectively, southerly
and northerly. In other words, Ulysses was always on the same side of
the jovimagnetic equator as the source at the time of the observation.
It follows from Figs. 6 and 7, however, that for RH polarization to be
observed by the spacecraft when it is at a northerly jovimagnetic latitude,
the angle
would have to be rather small if the assumption of
is valid. Similar considerations apply to the observation
of LH polarization when Ulysses is at a southerly jovimagnetic latitude.
This is further demonstrated in Fig. 8 where all of the measured values
of
are found to be less than about
.
However, the two-dimensional geometry shown in Fig. 6 and all of
the foregoing discussion assumes that the bKOM source is radiating from the
face of Jupiter directed towards Ulysses. This may not be the case
because the locii of the intersections of L and
are circles
around the planet, one to the north and one to the south of the jovimagnetic
equator.
In the direction finding analysis presented by Ladreiter et al. (1994),
it is evident that large-angle emission cones must point away
from Ulysses, i.e. be close to the limb of the planet with respect to Ulysses,
if their edges are to radiate in the direction of the spacecraft.
This may well be the case although the following questions then arise:
Thus it may be necessary to question some of the conclusions of the CMI theory or, indeed, the suitability of the theory itself as an explanation of the bKOM emission process although, at present, there is no obvious alternative explanation available.
![]() |
Figure 8:
Calculated values of emission cone half-angle |
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We have studied the bKOM radio emission from Jupiter observed by the URAP
experiment on board Ulysses during the period 940101 to 960301,
when the spacecraft was passing from south to north of the jovian equatorial
plane at distances ranging from 4.7 to 7.2 AU.
It is found that, in general, the bKOM events observed by Ulysses
when the spacecraft was at northerly jovicentric latitudes
were RH polarized while events recorded when the spacecraft
was at southerly jovicentric latitudes were LH polarized, the changeover taking
place somewhere between
,
close
to
jovimagnetic latitude.
Occurrence probabilities for left-hand polarized events were lower than those found previously by Barrow & Lecacheux (1995) but similar in distribution. For the right-hand polarized events, however, the distribution was different, the so-called main peak being absent or, perhaps, displaced to a higher CML.
We have shown that, in the two-dimensional model,
the detection of bKOM, at a given frequency
by a spacecraft at a given
location specified by
,
determines a unique value of
for an assumed value of L and a given field model. This is not true
for a three-dimensional model.
If the emission cones are assumed to be directed towards Ulysses,
calculated values of
for all of the events reported here,
assuming values of L = 15 and
kHz,
are found to be less than about
.
Larger values of
are possible, in principle, but then the source
must be on the limb of the planet with respect to the observer. This raises
difficulties concerning the polarization sense observed to either
side of the jovimagnetic equatorial plane.
It may be necessary to question some of the conclusions of the CMI theory or, indeed, the suitability of the theory itself as an explanation of the bKOM emission process although there is no obvious alternative explanation available at the present time.
Acknowledgements
We thank Drs. G. Woan and P. Zarka for valuable discussions. URAP is the collaborative effort of the four institutions, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, Centre de Recherches en Physique de l'Environnement Terrestre et Planétaire and the University of Minnesota. C.H.B. is pleased to acknowledge support from Copernicus Gesellschaft e.V. during a one-month visit to the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon.