Drift resonance and stability of the Io plasma torus

Abstract

The observed local time asymmetry of the Io plasma torus is generally attributed to the presence of a persistent dawn‐to‐dusk electric field in the Jovian magnetosphere. The local time asymmetry is modulated at the System 3 rotation period of Jupiter's magnetic field, suggesting that the dawn‐to‐dusk electric field may be similarly modulated. We argue that such a System 3 modulation would have a profound disruptive effect on the observed torus structure if the torus were to corotate at exactly the System 3 rate: the torus would be a resonantly forced harmonic oscillator, and would disintegrate in a few rotation periods, contrary to observations. This destabilizing effect is independent of, and in addition to, the more familiar effect of the centrifugal interchange instability, which is also capable of disrupting the torus in a few rotation periods in the absence of other effects. We conclude that the observed (few percent) corotation lag of the torus is essential to preserving the observed long‐lived torus structure by detuning the resonant frequency (the torus drift frequency) relative to the forcing frequency (System 3). A possible outcome of this confinement mechanism is a residual radial oscillation of the torus at the beat period (∼10 days) between System 3 and the torus drift period.