What Causes Radiation Belt Enhancements: A Survey of the Van Allen Probes Era

Boyd, A. J.; Turner, D. L.; Reeves, G. D.; Spence, H. E.; Baker, D. N.; Blake, J. B.

doi:10.1029/2018GL077699

Title: What Causes Radiation Belt Enhancements: A Survey of the Van Allen Probes Era

Journal Article · Tue Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077699· OSTI ID:1485390

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New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA (United States)
New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos, NM (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States). Inst. for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Lab. for Atmospheric and Space Sciences

We survey radiation belt enhancement events during the Van Allen Probes era to determine what mechanism is the dominant cause of enhancements and where it is most effective. Two primary mechanisms have been proposed: (1) betatron/Fermi acceleration due to the Earthward radial transport of electrons, which produces monotonic gradients in phase space density (PSD), and (2) “local acceleration” due to gyro/Landau resonant interaction with electromagnetic waves, which produces radially localized growing peaks in PSD. Here, to differentiate between these processes, we examine radial profiles of PSD in adiabatic coordinates using data from the Van Allen Probes and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms satellites for 80 outer belt enhancement events from October 2012 to April 2017. Here, this study shows that local acceleration is the dominant acceleration mechanism for MeV electrons in the outer belt, with 87% of the enhancement events exhibiting growing peaks. The strong correlation of the location of these with geomagnetic activity further supports this conclusion.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: 89233218CNA000001

OSTI ID:: 1485390

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-18-25084

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 11; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 54 works

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Outer Van Allen Radiation Belt Response to Interacting Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections Kilpua, E. K. J.; Turner, D. L.; Jaynes, A. N. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja026238	journal	March 2019
The March 2015 Superstorm Revisited: Phase Space Density Profiles and Fast ULF Wave Diffusive Transport Ozeke, L. G.; Mann, I. R.; Claudepierre, S. G. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ja026326	journal	February 2019
On the Importance of Gradients in the Low‐Energy Electron Phase Space Density for Relativistic Electron Acceleration Allison, Hayley J.; Horne, Richard B.; Glauert, Sarah A. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics https://doi.org/10.1029/2019ja026516	journal	April 2019
Impact of Significant Time‐Integrated Geomagnetic Activity on 2‐MeV Electron Flux Mourenas, D.; Artemyev, A. V.; Zhang, X. ‐J. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019ja026659	journal	June 2019
How Sudden, Intense Energetic Electron Enhancements Correlate With the Innermost Plasmapause Locations Under Various Solar Wind Drivers and Geomagnetic Conditions Khoo, L. ‐Y.; Li, X.; Zhao, H. Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, Vol. 124, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019ja027412	journal	November 2019
From solar sneezing to killer electrons: outer radiation belt response to solar eruptions Daglis, Ioannis A.; Katsavrias, Christos; Georgiou, Marina Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 377, Issue 2148 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0097	journal	May 2019
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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
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