A theoretical model for the distribution of latitudinal extents of field-aligned electron acceleration

Details A theoretical model for the distribution of latitudinal extents of field-aligned electron acceleration A theoretical model for the distribution of latitudinal extents of field-aligned electron acceleration

Nov 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006jgra..11111217y&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 111, Issue A11, CiteID A11217

Physics

Magnetospheric Physics: Auroral Phenomena (2407), Magnetospheric Physics: Energetic Particles: Precipitating, Magnetospheric Physics: Field-Aligned Currents And Current Systems (2409), Magnetospheric Physics: Numerical Modeling, Magnetospheric Physics: Plasma Sheet

Scientific paper

We reassess the mathematical expression for statistical distributions of latitudinal extents of electron acceleration events; the distributions have been obtained by Newell et al. (1996, hereinafter referred to as N96) using precipitation data from all Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites. Paper N96 proposed a basic hypothesis that within a (given) large-scale region of upward field-aligned currents (FACs), any 1-s spectrum has a constant probability, P, of experiencing electron acceleration independently of neighboring spectra. Directly from this hypothesis, the probability of observing n consecutive accelerated spectra, denoted by Qn, is newly derived as the correction of ``Pn-1(1 - P)'' that was assumed in N96. Necessarily, Qn is a function of the probability P and the latitudinal width W of a large-scale FAC region; hence it is written as Qn(W, P). The occurrence frequency distribution (histogram) of latitudinal extents of observed acceleration events can be identified with a statistical superposition of a number of Qn(W, P) in relatively wide ranges of W and P. For fitting to the histograms obtained in N96, 0.1° $\lesssim$ W and 0.7 $\lesssim$ P $\lesssim$ 0.98 are appropriate. This prediction is quite in contrast with N96's supposition that P is nearly constant and that normally the width of a large-scale FAC region is sufficiently large to accommodate many accelerated spectra. (The appearance of region 1 FACs of narrow widths has already been identified both observationally and theoretically.)

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