Observation of relativistic electron precipitation during a rapid decrease of trapped relativistic electron flux

Details Observation of relativistic electron precipitation during a rapid decrease of trapped relativistic electron flux Observation of relativistic electron precipitation during a rapid decrease of trapped relativistic electron flux

May 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007georl..3410101m&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 10, CiteID L10101

Physics

12

Magnetospheric Physics: Energetic Particles: Precipitating, Magnetospheric Physics: Energetic Particles: Trapped, Magnetospheric Physics: Radiation Belts, Magnetospheric Physics: Magnetosphere: Inner

Scientific paper

We present the first quantitative comparison of precipitating and geomagnetically trapped electron flux during a relativistic electron depletion event. Intense bremsstrahlung X-ray emission from relativistic electron precipitation was observed on January 19-20, 2000 (21:20-00:45 UT) by the germanium spectrometer on the MAXIS balloon payload (-7.2 to -9.3 E, 74 S corresponding to IGRF L = 4.7, 1920-2240 MLT). A rapid decrease in the geosynchronous >2 MeV electron flux was simultaneously observed at GOES-8 and GOES-10, and between 0.34-3.6 MeV by GPS ns33 at L = 4.7. The observations show that electrons were lost to the atmosphere early in the flux depletion event, during a period of magnetic field stretching in the tail. The observed X-ray spectrum is well modeled by an exponential distribution of precipitating electrons with an e-folding energy of 290 keV and a lower-energy cut-off of 400 keV. The duration of the event implies precipitation extended over at least 3 hours of MLT, assuming a source fixed in local time. Comparison of the precipitation rate with the flux decrease measured at GPS implies that the loss cone flux was only ~1% of the equatorial flux. However, precipitation is sufficient to account for the rate of flux decrease if it extended over 2-3 hours of local time.

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