Plasma Transport Driven by the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability

<p> Two important differences between the giant magnetospheres (i.e., Jupiter's and Saturn's magnetospheres) and the terrestrial magnetosphere are the internal plasma sources and the fast planetary rotation. Thus, there must be a radially outward flow to transport the plasma to avoid infinite accumulation of plasma. This radial outflow also carries the magnetic flux away from the inner magnetosphere due to the frozen&hyphen;in condition. As such, there also must be a radial inward flow to refill the magnetic flux in the inner magnetosphere. Due to the similarity between Rayleigh&hyphen;Taylor (RT) instability and the centrifugal instability, we use a three&hyphen;dimensional RT instability to demonstrate that an interchange instability can form a convection flow pattern, locally twisting the magnetic flux, consequently forming a pair of high&hyphen;latitude reconnection sites. This process exchanges a part of the flux tube, thereby transporting the plasma radially outward without requiring significant latitudinal convection of magnetic flux in the ionosphere.</p>