Reconnection at the Magnetopause of Jupiter and Saturn: Evidence From FTEs

Flux transfer events are interconnected flux tubes seen at the terrestrial magnetopause that contribute to the transfer of magnetic flux from the dayside magnetopause to the geomagnetic tail. At Earth these events occur principally when the IMF is southward and their occurrence rate decreases with increasing solar wind Mach number. Because they have a size and flux content that can be estimated these events can provide a lower limit of the magnetic flux transferred from the dayside to the tail in a planetary magnetosphere. We know that FTEs were observable in the Pioneer data at the jovian magnetopause but have not yet been reported for the saturnian magnetopause. In the paper we report on a survey of the rate of occurrence of FTEs at the two planets and use that survey to determine a lower limit to the rate of magnetic reconnection at Jupiter and Saturn.