Dust–plasma interaction through magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling in Saturn’s plasma disk

The ion bulk speeds in the equatorial region of Saturn’s inner magnetosphere, according to data from the Langmuir Probe (LP) on board the Cassini spacecraft, are about 60% of the ideal co-rotation speed; the ion speeds are between the co-rotation and Keplerian speeds (Holmberg et al., Ion densities and velocities in the inner plasma torus of Saturn, Planetary and Space Science). These findings suggest that sub-micrometer negatively charged E ring dust contributes to the plasma dynamics in the plasma disk.We calculated the ion speeds by using a multi-species fluid model, taking into account dust interactions to investigate the effects of ion–dust coulomb collision, mass loading, as well as taking into account magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling to investigate the effect of the magnetospheric electric field. The results show that the ion speeds can be significantly reduced by the electric fields generated by the collisions between ions and dusts when the dust density is high and the thickness of dust distribution is large. We also show that the ion speeds from our model are consistent with the LP observations when the maximum density of dust is larger than ∼105 m−3.

► We estimated ion speeds considering the ion–dust collision using a multi-fluid model.
► Ions are slowed down due to the electric fields generated by ion–dust collision.
► Ion speeds become small when a dust density or a dust cloud thickness is large.
► The model agrees with the observations when the dust density is larger than 105 m−3.