Jupiter's equatorward auroral features: Possible signatures of magnetospheric injections

The present study investigates the characteristics of ultraviolet auroral features located equatorward of the main emission appearing in Hubble Space Telescope images of the northern and southern Jovian hemispheres obtained in 2000-2007. On average, one feature is observed every day, but several auroral structures are occasionally seen over a wide range of local times in the same image. Several properties of these features are analyzed, such as their location, emitted power, and lifetime. Additionally, we magnetically map the auroral features to the equatorial plane using the VIPAL model in order to compare their observed properties with those of magnetospheric injections detected by the Galileo spacecraft. The equatorward auroral features show up between the Io footpath and the main auroral emission, at all System III longitudes, in agreement with Galileo measurements. Moreover, we compare the magnetic flux associated with these features with estimates of the outgoing flux related to the radial transport of plasma in the Jovian magnetosphere, and we find that they could account for at least one third of this flux. This comparative study shows that the auroral features under study are most probably related to magnetospheric injections and thus sheds light on the processes involved in the magnetosphere-ionosphere dynamics.