A search for Saturn electrostatic discharges in the Voyager plasma wave data

A search of Voyager spacecraft plasma wave data for evidence of Saturn electrostatic discharges, whose detection was suggested to be likely on the basis of radio astronomy observations, has yielded no evidence of this phenomenon. The statistical significance of this null result is analyzed, and its ramifications are commented upon. The explanations entertained for the lack of plasma wave observations of electrostatic discharges include the possibility that many events are of much shorter duration than previously reported, or that there may be a nonlinear distortion in the radio astronomy receiver employed which may have artificially broadened the spectrum of the discharges.