Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsm13b..06o&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SM13B-06
Physics
2720 Energetic Particles: Trapped, 2774 Radiation Belts
Scientific paper
Close to the dayside magnetopause, there is a region of space where the field lines come sufficiently close to the cusp minima that they have two local field minima over them. That region is located around local noon, and extends about 2-3 Earth radii from the magnetopause. Particles that enter this region with equatorial pitch angles sufficiently close to 90 degrees will cross the day side not along an equatorial path, but along one of the two branches on either side of the equatorial plane. The two branches are joined again past local noon. This bifurcation process is non-adiabatic even under static conditions and changes the second invariant I by a small amount that is of the order of the gyroradius. For near-equatorial particles (small I) the change can be significantly larger. The first invariant is not altered in the process. This non-adiabaticity affects transport through a region that separates the outer radiation belt from its sources in the plasma sheet and the polar cusps. We present a formula for estimating diffusion in I in terms of the particle energy, I, and properties of the magnetic field model. The occurrence of this non-adiabaticity implies the existence of a new level of trapping, which we call "metastable trapping", in which an energetic particle drifting in a static magnetic field can circle the Earth many times and then escape through the magnetopause.
Öztürk Kaan M.
Wolf Richard A.
No associations
LandOfFree
Non-adiabatic Energetic Particle Transport Caused by Drift-Shell Bifurcation does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Non-adiabatic Energetic Particle Transport Caused by Drift-Shell Bifurcation, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Non-adiabatic Energetic Particle Transport Caused by Drift-Shell Bifurcation will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-970561