Theory and Simulations of Interaction of Radiation Belt Electrons with MHD Waves

Physics – Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

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[2730] Magnetospheric Physics / Magnetosphere: Inner, [2752] Magnetospheric Physics / Mhd Waves And Instabilities, [2774] Magnetospheric Physics / Radiation Belts, [7867] Space Plasma Physics / Wave/Particle Interactions

Scientific paper

Radiation belt dynamics is often modeled using a Fokker-Planck equation for phase-space density as a function of one, two, or three adiabatic invariants (or some equivalent set of phase-space variables, plus corresponding Jacobian factors). In such equations the particle motion is assumed to be diffusive and the diffusion coefficients are derived using quasilinear theory. In this paper we describe two approaches to calculating MHD-wave induced radial transport of radiation belt electrons: (1) We use a simple but general model of a spectrum of MHD waves to analytically and numerically examine the validity of quasilinear theory. This includes new calculations of single-wave drift-resonance island widths, and examination of the Chirikov overlap criterion, the transition to global chaos, the conditions under which the chaotic motion becomes diffusive, the scaling of the autocorrelation time, and the accuracy of the analytic quasilinear diffusion coefficient formula. (2) We compare measurements of phase-space density at equatorial GPS locations during the January 1995 high-speed-stream storm to results from (a) an MHD-particle simulation, and (b) a radial diffusion simulation that uses quasilinear diffusion coefficients calculated from power spectral densities of the MHD waves of the MHD simulation. Overall, our results indicate that quasilinear theory is a useful tool for describing interactions of radiation belt electrons with MHD waves.

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