Low-altitude measurements of 2–6 MeV electron trapping lifetimes at 1.5 ≤ L ≤ 2.5

During the Halloween Storm period (October–November 2003), a new Van Allen belt electron population was powerfully accelerated. The inner belt of electrons formed in this process decayed over a period of days to years. We have examined quantitatively the decay rates for electrons seen in the region of 1.5 ≤ L ≤ 2.5 using SAMPEX satellite observations. At L = 1.5 the e-folding lifetime for 2–6 MeV electrons was τ ∼ 180 days. On the other hand, for the half-dozen distinct acceleration (or enhancement) events seen during late-2003 through 2005 at L ∼ 2.0, the lifetimes ranged from τ ∼ 8 days to τ ∼ 35 days. We compare these loss rates to those expected from prior studies. We find that lifetimes at L = 2.0 are much shorter than the average 100–200 days that present theoretical estimates would suggest for the overall L = 2 electron population. Additional wave-particle interaction aspects must be included in theoretical treatments and we describe such possibilities here

Evaluation of SaRIF high-energy electron reconstructions and forecasts

Increasing numbers of satellites are orbiting through the Earth's radiation belts, and the range of orbits being commonly used is also growing. As a result, there is an increasing need for services to help protect satellites from space weather. The Satellite RIsk prediction and radiation Forecast (SaRIF) system provides reconstructions and forecasts of the high-energy electron flux throughout the outer radiation belt and translates these predictions into charging currents, dose rates, total ionizing dose and risk indicators. SaRIF both informs satellite operators of current and expected conditions and provides a tool to aid in post-event analysis. The reconstructions and forecasts are provided by the British Antarctic Survey Radiation Belt Model (BAS-RBM) running as part of an automatic system using real-time data to specify the boundary conditions and drive processes within the physics-based model. If SaRIF is to provide a useful tool, then the accuracy of the reconstructions and forecasts needs to be understood. Here we assess the accuracy of the simulations for geostationary orbit by comparing the model output with measurements made by the GOES 14 spacecraft for the period March–September 2019. No GOES 14 data was used to create the reconstruction or forecasts. We show that, with some improvements to the original system, the reconstructions have a prediction efficiency of 0.82 for >800 keV electrons and 0.87 for >2 MeV electrons, with corresponding prediction efficiencies of 0.59 and 0.78 for the forecasts

A New Model of Electron Pitch Angle Distributions and Loss Timescales in the Earth's Radiation Belts

As the number of satellites on orbit grows it is increasingly important to understand their operating environment. Physics-based models can simulate the behavior of the Earth's radiation belts by solving a Fokker-Planck equation. Three-dimensional models use diffusion coefficients to represent the interactions between electromagnetic waves and the electrons. One-dimensional radial diffusion models neglect the effects of energy diffusion and represent the losses due to the waves with a loss timescale. Both approaches may use pitch angle distributions (PADs) to create boundary conditions, to map observations from low to high equatorial pitch angles and to calculate phase-space density from observations. We present a comprehensive set of consistent PADs and loss timescales for 2 ≤ L* ≤ 7, 100 keV ≤ E ≤ 5 MeV and all levels of geomagnetic activity determined by the Kp index. These are calculated from drift-averaged diffusion coefficients that represent all the VLF waves that typically interact with radiation belt electrons and show good agreement with data. The contribution of individual waves is demonstrated; magnetosonic waves have little effect on loss timescales when lightning-generated whistlers are present, and chorus waves contribute to loss even in low levels of geomagnetic activity. The PADs vary in shape depending on the dominant waves. When chorus is dominant the distributions have little activity dependence, unlike the corresponding loss timescales. Distributions peaked near 90° are formed by plasmaspheric hiss for L* ≤ 3 and E 3 and E > 1 MeV. When hiss dominates, increasing activity broadens the distribution but when EMIC waves dominate increasing activity narrows the distribution

Chorus wave power at the strong diffusion limit overcomes electron losses due to strong diffusion

Earth’s radiation belts consist of high-energy charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field. Strong pitch angle diffusion of electrons caused by wave-particle interaction in Earth’s radiation belts has primarily been considered as a loss process, as trapped electrons are rapidly diffused into the loss cone and lost to the atmosphere. However, the wave power necessary to produce strong diffusion should also produce rapid energy diffusion, and has not been considered in this context. Here we provide evidence of strong diffusion using satellite data. We use two-dimensional Fokker-Planck simulations of electron diffusion in pitch angle and energy to show that scaling up chorus wave power to the strong diffusion limit produces rapid acceleration of electrons, sufficient to outweigh the losses due to strong diffusion. The rate of losses saturates at the strong diffusion limit, whilst the rate of acceleration does not. This leads to the surprising result of an increase, not a decrease in the trapped electron population during strong diffusion due to chorus waves as expected when treating strong diffusion as a loss process. Our results suggest there is a tipping point in chorus wave power between net loss and net acceleration that global radiation belt models need to capture to better forecast hazardous radiation levels that damage satellites

A new approach to constructing models of electron diffusion by EMIC waves in the radiation belts

Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves play an important role in relativistic electron losses in the radiation belts through diffusion via resonant wave‐particle interactions. We present a new approach for calculating bounce and drift‐averaged EMIC electron diffusion coefficients. We calculate bounce‐averaged diffusion coefficients, using quasi‐linear theory, for each individual CRRES EMIC wave observation using fitted wave properties, the plasma density and the background magnetic field. These calculations are then combined into bounce‐averaged diffusion coefficients. The resulting coefficients therefore capture the combined effects of individual spectra and plasma properties as opposed to previous approaches that use average spectral and plasma properties, resulting in diffusion over a wider range of energies and pitch‐angles. These calculations, and their role in radiation belt simulations, are then compared against existing diffusion models. The new diffusion coefficients are found to significantly improve the agreement between the calculated decay of relativistic electrons and Van Allen Probes data

Rapid electron acceleration in low density regions of Saturn's radiation belt by whistler mode chorus waves

Electron acceleration at Saturn due to whistler mode chorus waves has previously been assumed to be ineffective; new data closer to the planet shows it can be very rapid (factor of 104 flux increase at 1 MeV in 10 days compared to factor of 2). A full survey of chorus waves at Saturn is combined with an improved plasma density model to show that where the plasma frequency falls below the gyrofrequency additional strong resonances are observed favoring electron acceleration. This results in strong chorus acceleration between approximately 2.5 RS and 5.5 RS outside which adiabatic transport may dominate. Strong pitch angle dependence results in butterfly pitch angle distributions that flatten over a few days at 100s keV, tens of days at MeV energies which may explain observations of butterfly distributions of MeV electrons near L=3. Including cross terms in the simulations increases the tendency towards butterfly distributions

Acceleration of electrons by whistler-mode hiss waves at Saturn

Plasmaspheric hiss waves at the Earth are well known for causing losses of electrons from the radiation belts through wave particle interactions. At Saturn, however, we show that the different plasma density environment leads to acceleration of the electrons rather than loss. The ratio of plasma frequency to electron gyrofrequency frequently falls below one creating conditions for hiss to accelerate electrons. The location of hiss at high latitudes ( > 25°) coincides very well with this region of very low density. The interaction between electrons and hiss only occurs at these higher latitudes, therefore the acceleration is limited to mid to low pitch angles leading to butterfly pitch angle distributions. The hiss is typically an order of magnitude stronger than chorus at Saturn and the resulting acceleration is rapid, approaching steady state in one day at 0.4 MeV at L=7 and the effect is stronger with increasing L-shell

Characterizing Radiation‐Belt Energetic Electron Precipitation Spectra: A Comparison of Quasi‐Linear Diffusion Theory With In Situ Measurements

High energy electron precipitation from the Earth's radiation belts is important for loss from the radiation belts and atmospheric chemistry. We follow up investigations presented in Reidy et al. (2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020ja028410) where precipitating flux is calculated inside the field of view of the POES T0 detector using quasi-linear theory and pitch angle diffusion coefficients (Dαα) from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). These results showed good agreements at >30 keV for L* >5 on the dawnside but the flux were too low at higher energies. We have investigated the effect of changing parameters in the calculation of the precipitating flux to improve the results for the higher energies using comparisons of in situ flux and cold plasma measurements from GOES-15 and RBSP. We find that the strength of the diffusion coefficients rather than the shape of the source spectrum has the biggest effect on the calculated precipitation. In particular we find decreasing the cold plasma density used in the calculation of Dαα increases the diffusion and hence the precipitation at the loss cone for the higher energies, improving our results. The method of calculating Dαα is also examined, comparing co-located rather than averaged RBSP measurements. We find that the method itself has minimal effect but using RBSP derived Dαα improved our results over using Dαα calculated using the entire BAS wave data base; this is potentially due to better measurements of the cold plasma density from RBSP than the other spacecraft included in the BAS wave data base (e.g., THEMIS)

Cross-L* coherence of the outer radiation belt during 2 storms and the role of the plasmapause

The high energy electron population in Earth’s outer radiation belt is extremely variable, changing by multiple orders of magnitude on timescales that vary from under an hour to several weeks. These changes are typically linked to geomagnetic activity such as storms and substorms. In this study, we seek to understand how coherent changes in the radiation belt are across all radial distances, in order to provide a spatial insight into apparent global variations. We do this by calculating the correlation between fluxes on different L* measured by the PET instrument aboard the SAMPEX spacecraft for times associated with 15 large storms. Our results show that during these times, variations in the 0.63 MeV electron flux are coherent outside the minimum plasmapause location and also coherent inside the minimum plasmapause location, when flux is present. However, variations in the electron fluxes inside the plasmapause show little correlation with those outside the plasmapause. During storm recovery and possibly main phases, flux variations are coherent across all L* regardless of plasmapause location, due to a rapid decrease, followed by an increase in radiation belt fluxes across all L*

Modeling the effects of radial diffusion and plasmaspheric hiss on outer radiation belt electrons

We simulate the behaviour of relativistic (976 keV) electrons in the outer radiation belt (3 ≤ L ≤ 7) during the first half of the CRRES mission. We use a 1d radial diffusion model with losses due to pitch-angle scattering by plasmaspheric hiss expressed through the electron lifetime calculated using the PADIE code driven by a global K p -dependent model of plasmaspheric hiss intensity and f pe /f ce . We use a time and energy-dependent outer boundary derived from observations. The model reproduces flux variations to within an order of magnitude for L ≤ 4 suggesting hiss is the dominant cause of electron losses in the plasmasphere near the equator. At L = 5 the model reproduces significant variations but underestimates the size of the variability. We find that during magnetic storms hiss can cause significant losses for L ≤ 6 due to its presence in plumes. Wave acceleration is partially represented by the boundary conditions