Why Is a Titan-generated Nitrogen Torus Not Observed In Saturn's Magnetosphere?

Prior to Cassini's arrival at Saturn, Titan-generated nitrogen ions were thought to dominate heavy plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere. Therefore, the presence of a Titan nitrogen torus was anticipated. However, it is now known water-group ions dominate Saturn's heavy ion magnetospheric plasma. While nitrogen ions have been detected beyond the orbit of Rhea, these ions appear to be primarily originating from the Enceladus plumes with little nitrogen plasma detected in the magnetosphere near Titan's orbit. In fact, pick-up oxygen ions from Enceladus are much more abundant than nitrogen in Titan’s orbit. These results appear inconsistent with the expectation that Titan's dense relatively unprotected atmosphere should provide a significant source of heavy particles to Saturn's magnetosphere. This inconsistency suggests that the plasma environment at Titan's orbit is much more complex than originally anticipated. In this talk, we expand on our previous research that categorizes the plasma environments near Titan to include all locations along Titan's orbit. Using these categories, we develop characteristic plasma spectra of each type of environment, update ionization lifetimes for each region and apply these results in a 3D Monte Carlo model to more accurately examine the fate of nitrogen and methane escaping Titan's atmosphere to support the possible presence of a Titan torus despite the lack of observations. We also present preliminary Cassini data analysis that is focused on regions where such a torus could be detected. This work is supported by the NASA Cassini Data Analysis Program and NASA JPL contract 1243218 for Cassini MIMI and CAPS investigation.