Survey of Voyager plasma science ions at Jupiter: 1. Analysis method

The Voyagers 1 and 2 spacecraft flew by Jupiter in March and July of 1979, respectively. The Plasma Science instrument (PLS) acquired detailed measurements of the plasma environment in the equatorial region of the magnetosphere between 4.9 and 4 RJ. While bulk plasma properties such as charge density, ion temperature, and bulk flow were reasonably well determined, the ion composition was only well constrained in occasional regions of cold plasma. The ion data obtained by the PLS instrument have been reanalyzed using physical chemistry models to constrain the composition and reduce the number of free parameters, particularly in regions of hotter plasma. This paper describes the method used for fitting the plasma data and presents the results versus time. Two companion papers describe the composition of heavy ions and present analysis of protons plus other minor ions. Key Points Voyager plasma data are reanalyzed using model constraints on ion composition Net charge density and ion temperatures are basically consistent with previous analysis Small regions of cold plasma with varying composition are found in the plasma sheet