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Title: Multi-satellite simultaneous observations of magnetopause and atmospheric losses of radiation belt electrons during an intense solar wind dynamic pressure pulse

Journal Article · · Annales Geophysicae (Online)
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [3];  [6];  [7]
  1. Wuhan Univ., Hubei (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
  2. Wuhan Univ., Hubei (China)
  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
  4. China Meteorological Admininstration, Beijing (China)
  5. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
  7. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
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Radiation belt electron flux dropouts are a kind of drastic variation in the Earth's magnetosphere, understanding of which is of both scientific and societal importance. We report multi-satellite simultaneous observations of magnetopause and atmospheric losses of radiation belt electrons during an event of intense solar wind dynamic pressure pulse, using electron flux data from a group of 14 satellites. Moreover, when the pulse occurred, magnetopause and atmospheric loss could take effect concurrently contributing to the electron flux dropout. Losses through the magnetopause were observed to be efficient and significant at L ≳ 5, owing to the magnetopause intrusion into L ~6 and outward radial diffusion associated with sharp negative gradient in electron phase space density. Losses to the atmosphere were directly identified from the precipitating electron flux observations, for which pitch angle scattering by plasma waves could be mainly responsible. While the convection and substorm injections strongly enhanced the energetic electron fluxes up to hundreds of keV, they could delay other than avoid the occurrence of electron flux dropout at these energies. Finally, we demonstrate that the pulse-time radiation belt electron flux dropout depends strongly on the specific interplanetary and magnetospheric conditions and that losses through the magnetopause and to the atmosphere and enhancements of substorm injection play an essential role in combination, which should be incorporated as a whole into future simulations for comprehending the nature of radiation belt electron flux dropouts.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1291220
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-27237
Journal Information:
Annales Geophysicae (Online), Vol. 34, Issue 5; ISSN 1432-0576
Publisher:
European Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (2)

Jets Downstream of Collisionless Shocks journal June 2018
Modeling the Quasi‐Trapped Electron Fluxes From Cosmic Ray Albedo Neutron Decay (CRAND) journal February 2019

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Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
magnetospheric physics (energetic particles precipitating
magnetospheric configuration and dynamics
space plasma physics (wave-particle interactions)