Burst precipitation of energetic electrons from the magnetosphere

Thesis/Dissertation · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1978

OSTI ID:6114820

Dingle, B K

The earth's magenetosphere is a cast but leaky reservoir for energetic electrons. These electrons continually rain out of the magnetosphere into the dense lower atmosphere where they deposit their energy and produce a variety of effects. Notable examples are the auroras at high latitudes and the maintenance of the nighttime lower ionosphere at middle latitudes. Weather may be significantly influenced on a global scale by electron precipitation. At sub-auroral latitudes a particularly interesting form of precipitation occurs in short bursts (0.1 to 10 seconds duration) and is driven by resonant interactions in the magnetosphere with pulses of very low frequency (VLF) radiation. The radiation may originate as lightning on the ground or be generated within the magnetosphere. VLF navigation and communication signals propagating in the earth-ionosphere waveguide often suffer transient amplitude and phase perturbations at night caused by such precipitation bursts and the extra ionization they produce in the D region of the ionosphere. The observed association between thunderstorms and sporadic-E layers in the overlying ionosphere may be produced by this same mechanism. Pulses of light and x-rays are also generated by electron burst precipitation. Two procedures have been developed for calculating the intensity and energy spectrum of bursts of precipitating electrons. The first method applies when low amplitude wave energy is driving the precipitation and gives quick results using a desk calculator. The second routine extends the computations to large wave amplitudes. Although it requires a minicomputer for reasonable turn-around time, this extended version is nevertheless about two orders of magnitude faster than many particle simulation routines that might otherwise be used.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6114820
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640201 -- Atmospheric Physics-- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena
640203* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (-1987)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AMPLITUDES
AURORAE
CHARGED-PARTICLE PRECIPITATION
D REGION
E REGION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELECTRON PRECIPITATION
ELECTRONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY SPECTRA
FERMIONS
IONIZATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
IONOSPHERE
LEPTONS
MAGNETOSPHERE
PLANETARY IONOSPHERES
RADIATIONS
SPECTRA
SPORADIC E
X RADIATION