Investigating the Occurrence of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instabilities at Jupiter's Dawn Magnetopause

Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHI) are a turbulent process that transfers mass, energy, and momentum across a boundary between two fluids. The Juno mission has provided several observations of dawn magnetopause crossings, where KHI are hypothesized to occur due to opposing plasma velocities between the magnetosphere and magnetosheath in this region. Using the relation derived in Chandrasekhar [1961] as well as particle and magnetic field observations from the JADE and MAG instruments on Juno, we identify the occurrence of magnetopause crossings that show evidence of being KH unstable and compare the results with previous KHI studies. The KHI relation determines a boundary is KH unstable if the velocity shear is greater than the magnetic restoring force. We define strong bipolar fluctuations of in-plane (x and y-axis) magnetic field components, periodic oscillations (~5-10 minutes) between magnetosheath- and magnetosphere-like plasma properties and the reversal of velocities in the y direction as signatures of local KHI. Preliminary results show that the KHI relation is not well correlated with in-situ Juno observations. Of the 23 events that satisfied this relation, 3 events showed all 3 KHI signatures defined above, 13 showed 1-2 signatures, and 7 events did not show any signatures. We discuss these results and their implication for the prevalence of KHI at Juno's dawn magnetopause as measured by Juno.