Plasma Transport and Magnetic Flux Circulation in Saturn's Magnetosphere

Radial transport of plasma in the rapidly rotating magnetospheres is an important dynamical process. Radial transport is due to the centrifugally driven interchange instability and magnetodisc reconnection, allowing net mass to be transported outward while conserving magnetic flux. Using Cassini Plasma Spectrometer instrument (CAPS) data products (e.g., Thomsen et al., [2010]; Wilson et al., [2017]) we estimate plasma mass and magnetic flux transport rates as functions of radial distance and local time. The physical requirement for zero net magnetic flux transport provides a key benchmark for assessing the validity of our mass transport estimate. We also evaluate magnetodisc stability using a two-dimensional axisymmetric equilibrium model [Caudal, 1986]. Observed local properties (e.g., specific entropy and estimates of flux tube mass and entropy content) are compared with modeled equilibrium conditions such that departures from equilibrium can be correlated with radial flows and local magnetic field structure. Finally, observations of specific entropy indicate that plasma is non-adiabatic heated during transport. However, the values of specific entropy are well organized in inner magnetosphere (i.e. L<10), and become widely scattered in the middle magnetosphere, suggesting that the transport dynamics of the inner and middle magnetosphere are different.