Detecting Field-Aligned Current Signatures Using MAVEN Observations

Currents aligned with magnetic field lines have been observed on multiple planets, including Mars, Mercury, Earth, Saturn, and Jupiter. As documented by Mars Global Surveyor, field-aligned currents occur at Mars near regions of moderate or strong crustal magnetic fields. These currents, identified by the magnetic field perturbations they cause, indicate the acceleration of charged particles toward the Martian atmosphere, which may result in atmospheric heating, ionization, and discrete aurora observed at ultraviolet wavelengths. It is likely that charged particles are removed from the atmosphere via these currents in magnetic cusp regions. At present, the locations and conditions for which field-aligned current systems can occur at Mars are not well understood. We use magnetic field measurements collected by MAVEN between December 2014 and September 2015 to investigate the incidence of low-altitude field-aligned currents on the nightside of the planet in regions of strong crustal fields. These currents have been found to cause perturbations in the magnetic field at magnitudes of 5 nT. We have automated the detection process in order to facilitate future study of field-aligned currents using MAVEN data. First, low-frequency signals caused by spacecraft motion are removed from the data, revealing short-term (1-5 seconds) perturbations. The disturbances due to field-aligned currents are recorded by finding areas where the filtered data exceeds a threshold value for multiple seconds. Current events are then mapped to the planet's surface. We report on the geographic distribution of field-aligned current signatures, as well as their distributions with respect to local time.