Jovian Auroral Electron Precipitation Budget—A Statistical Analysis of Diffuse, Mono‐Energetic, and Broadband Auroral Electron Distributions

Recent observations by the Juno spacecraft have shown that electrons contributing to Jupiter's main auroral emission appear to be frequently characterized by broadband electron distributions, but also less often mono‐energetic electron distributions are observed as well. In this work, we quantitatively derive the occurrence rates of the various electron distributions contributing to Jupiter's aurora. We perform a statistical analysis of electrons measured by the JEDI‐instrument within 30–1,200 keV from Juno's first 20 orbits. We determine the electron distributions, either pancake, field‐aligned, mono‐energetic, or broadband, through energy and pitch angles to associate various acceleration mechanisms. The statistical analysis shows that field‐aligned accelerated electrons at magnetic latitudes greater than 76° are observed in 87.6% ± 7.2% of the intervals time averaged over the dipole L‐shells according the main oval. Pancake distributions, indicating diffuse aurora, are prominent at smaller magnetic latitudes (