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Title: Wave-driven butterfly distribution of Van Allen belt relativistic electrons

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9590· OSTI ID:1259287
 [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7]
  1. Changsha Univ. of Science and Technology, Changsha (China). School of Physics and Electronic Sciences
  2. Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory for Basic Plasma Physics
  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Center for Space Science and Applied Research
  4. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
  5. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States). Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space
  6. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  7. The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Van Allen radiation belts consist of relativistic electrons trapped by Earth's magnetic field. Trapped electrons often drift azimuthally around Earth and display a butterfly pitch angle distribution of a minimum at 90° further out than geostationary orbit. This is usually attributed to drift shell splitting resulting from day–night asymmetry in Earth’s magnetic field. However, direct observation of a butterfly distribution well inside of geostationary orbit and the origin of this phenomenon have not been provided so far. Here we report high-resolution observation that a unusual butterfly pitch angle distribution of relativistic electrons occurred within 5 Earth radii during the 28 June 2013 geomagnetic storm. In conclusion, simulation results show that combined acceleration by chorus and magnetosonic waves can successfully explain the electron flux evolution both in the energy and butterfly pitch angle distribution. Finally, the current provides a great support for the mechanism of wave-driven butterfly distribution of relativistic electrons.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
Grant/Contract Number:
2012CB825603; 41531072; 41274165; 41204114
OSTI ID:
1259287
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 6; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 139 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (30)

Electron scattering by magnetosonic waves in the inner magnetosphere: ELECTRON SCATTERING BY MS WAVES journal January 2016
Ultrarelativistic electron butterfly distributions created by parallel acceleration due to magnetosonic waves: MS WAVES CREATE BUTTERFLY DISTRIBUTIONS journal April 2016
Resonant Scattering of Radiation Belt Electrons by Off‐Equatorial Magnetosonic Waves journal February 2018
On the Diffusion Rates of Electron Bounce Resonant Scattering by Magnetosonic Waves journal April 2018
Formation of Butterfly Pitch Angle Distributions of Relativistic Electrons in the Outer Radiation Belt With a Monochromatic Pc5 Wave journal June 2018
Fast Magnetosonic Waves Observed by Van Allen Probes: Testing Local Wave Excitation Mechanism journal January 2018
Magnetotail dipolarization fronts and particle acceleration: A review journal December 2019
Monte Carlo simulations of the sensor head of imaging energetic electron spectrometer onboard a Chinese IGSO navigation satellite journal October 2018
Generation of Lower L Shell Dayside Chorus by Energetic Electrons From the Plasma Sheet journal October 2018
Response of Banded Whistler Mode Waves to the Enhancement of Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure in the Inner Earth's Magnetosphere journal September 2018
Generation of Lower Harmonic Magnetosonic Waves Through Nonlinear Wave‐Wave Interactions journal August 2018
Magnetosonic Harmonic Falling and Rising Frequency Emissions Potentially Generated by Nonlinear Wave‐Wave Interactions in the Van Allen Radiation Belts journal August 2018
Combined Scattering of Outer Radiation Belt Electrons by Simultaneously Occurring Chorus, Exohiss, and Magnetosonic Waves journal October 2018
Evolution of Radiation Belt Electron Pitch Angle Distribution Due to Combined Scattering by Plasmaspheric Hiss and Magnetosonic Waves journal March 2019
Equatorial Noise With Quasiperiodic Modulation: Multipoint Observations by the Van Allen Probes Spacecraft journal June 2018
Earth's Van Allen Radiation Belts: From Discovery to the Van Allen Probes Era journal November 2019
Analytical Chorus Wave Model Derived from Van Allen Probe Observations journal February 2019
An Automatic Detection Algorithm Applied to Fast Magnetosonic Waves With Observations of the Van Allen Probes journal May 2019
Quenching of Equatorial Magnetosonic Waves by Substorm Proton Injections journal June 2019
Combined Scattering of Radiation Belt Electrons Caused by Landau and Bounce Resonant Interactions With Magnetosonic Waves journal September 2019
Characteristics and Generation of Low‐Frequency Magnetosonic Waves Below the Proton Gyrofrequency journal November 2019
Generation of EMIC Waves and Effects on Particle Precipitation During a Solar Wind Pressure Intensification With B z >0 journal June 2019
Equatorial Propagation of the Magnetosonic Mode Across the Plasmapause: 2‐D PIC Simulations journal June 2019
Predicting Lower Band Chorus With Autoregressive‐Moving Average Transfer Function (ARMAX) Models journal July 2019
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Excitation of chorus-like waves by temperature anisotropy in dipole research experiment (DREX): A numerical study journal January 2018

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