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How whistler mode hiss waves and the plasmasphere drive the quiet decay of radiation belts electrons following a geomagnetic storm
Conference proceeding   Open access   Peer reviewed

How whistler mode hiss waves and the plasmasphere drive the quiet decay of radiation belts electrons following a geomagnetic storm

J-F Ripoll, M. Denton, V. Loridan, O. Santolik, D. Malaspina, D. P. Hartley, G. S. Cunningham, G. Reeves, S. Thaller, D. L. Turner, …
14TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NUMERICAL MODELING OF SPACE PLASMA FLOWS (ASTRONUM-2019), Vol.1623(1), p.12005
Journal of Physics Conference Series
09/01/2020
DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1623/1/012005
url
https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1623/1/012005View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

We show how an extended period of quiet solar wind conditions contributes to a quiet state of the plasmasphere that expands up to L similar to 5.5, which creates the perfect conditions for wave-particle interactions between the radiation belt electrons and whistler-mode hiss waves. The correlation between the hiss waves and the plasma density is direct with hiss wave power increasing with plasma density, while it was generally assumed that these quantities can be specified independently. Whistler-mode hiss waves pitch angle diffuse and ultimately scatter freshly injected electrons into the atmosphere until the slot region is formed between the inner and outer belt and the outer belt is drastically reduced. In this study, we use and combine Van Allen Probes observations and Fokker-Planck numerical simulations. The Fokker-Planck model uses consistent event-driven pitch angle diffusion coefficients from whistler-mode hiss waves. Observations and simulations allow us to reach a global understanding of the variations in the trapped electron population with time, space, energy, and pitch angle that is based on the existing theory of quasi-linear wave-particle interactions. We show, for instance, the outer belt is pitch-angle homogeneous, which is explained by the event-driven diffusion coefficients that are roughly constant for equatorial pitch angle alpha(0)similar to<60 degrees, E>100 keV, 3.5<L<Lpp similar to 6. The impact of this work is to bring an improved understanding of the belt evolution based on the integration of high quality and highly temporally and spatially resolved measurements that are integrated in modern computations. We also propose the event-driven method as an accurate method (within x2) to predict the electron flux decay after storms
Mathematics Physical Sciences Physics Astronomy & Astrophysics Mathematics, Applied Physics, Applied Physics, Fluids & Plasmas Physics, Mathematical Science & Technology

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