Characteristic energy range of electron scattering due to plasmaspheric hiss
Abstract
We investigate the characteristic energy range of electron flux decay due to the interaction with plasmaspheric hiss in the Earth's inner magnetosphere. The Van Allen Probes have measured the energetic electron flux decay profiles in the Earth's outer radiation belt during a quiet period following the geomagnetic storm that occurred on 7 November 2015. The observed energy of significant electron decay increases with decreasing L shell and is well correlated with the energy band corresponding to the first adiabatic invariant μ = 4–200 MeV/G. The electron diffusion coefficients due to hiss scattering are calculated at L = 2–6, and the modeled energy band of effective pitch angle scattering is also well correlated with the constant μ lines and is consistent with the observed energy range of electron decay. Using the previously developed statistical plasmaspheric hiss model during modestly disturbed periods, we perform a 2‐D Fokker‐Planck simulation of the electron phase space density evolution at L = 3.5 and demonstrate that plasmaspheric hiss causes the significant decay of 100 keV–1 MeV electrons with the largest decay rate occurring at around 340 keV, forming anisotropic pitch angle distributions at lower energies and more flattened distributions at higher energies. Our study provides reasonable estimates of the electron populations that can be most significantly affected by plasmaspheric hiss and the consequent electron decay profiles.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2016
- Source ID
- 10.1002/2016ja023311
Entities
People
- Bernard Blake
- Craig Kletzing
- Daniel N. Baker
- Geoffrey D Reeves
- George G. Hospodarsky
- Harlan Spence
- Jacob Bortnik
- Joseph Fennell
- Qianli Ma
- Richard Thorne
- Seth G Claudepierre
- V. Angelopoulos
- Wen Li
- William S. Kurth
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Boston University
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Science Foundation Office of the Director
- The Aerospace Corporation
- University of California
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of Iowa
- University of New Hampshire