Radial gradients of phase space density of the outer radiation belt electrons prior to sudden solar wind pressure enhancements

Details Radial gradients of phase space density of the outer radiation belt electrons prior to sudden solar wind pressure enhancements Radial gradients of phase space density of the outer radiation belt electrons prior to sudden solar wind pressure enhancements

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsm53a1662t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SM53A-1662

Physics

2720 Energetic Particles: Trapped, 2774 Radiation Belts, 2784 Solar Wind/Magnetosphere Interactions, 7845 Particle Acceleration, 7984 Space Radiation Environment

Scientific paper

When sudden solar wind pressure enhancements impact Earth's magnetosphere, dayside trapped electrons are transported radially inwards, conserving their first and second adiabatic invariants (μ and K). Using measurements from geosynchronous spacecraft immediately before and after these events, the direction of the phase space density (PSD) radial gradient can be determined. Here we describe this method and discuss our results from over fifty events. These results suggest that the PSD radial gradients are μ (or energy) dependent; the gradients for low energy electrons, with energy less than a couple of hundred keV, tend to be flat or slightly increasing (positive gradient), while the gradient for higher energy electrons, with energies of several hundred keV to MeV, decreases (negative gradient) in the majority of cases. This implies that a local heating occurs inside GEO for the high energy electrons in the majority of cases examined. We also discuss a superposed epoch analysis studying the differences prior to events where the PSD gradient for high energy electrons is positive and negative.

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