Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY A-MATHEMATICAL PHYSICAL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES
Volume 466, Issue 2123, Pages 3329-3350Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2010.0078
Keywords
radiation belt; relativistic electrons; global positioning system; solar wind
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Funding
- US Department of Energy
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We present a statistical study of relativistic electron counts in the electron radiation belt across a range of drift shells (L* > 4) combining data from nine combined X-ray dosimeters (CXD) on the global positioning system (GPS) constellation. The response of the electron counts as functions of time, energy and drift shell are examined statistically for 67 solar wind stream interfaces (SIs); two-dimensional superposed epoch analysis is performed with the CXD data. For these epochs we study the radiation belt dropouts and concurrent variations in key geophysical parameters. At higher L* we observe a tendency for a gradual drop in the electron counts over the day preceding the SI, consistent with outward diffusion and magnetopause shadowing. At all L*, dropouts occur with a median time scale of similar or equal to 7 h and median counts fall by 0.4-1.8 orders of magnitude. The central tendencies of radiation belt dropout and recovery depend on both L* and energy. For similar or equal to 70 per cent of epochs Sym-H more than -30 nT, yet only three of 67 SIs did not have an associated dropout in the electron data. Statistical maps of electron precipitation suggest that chorus-driven relativistic electron microbursts might be major contributors to radiation belt losses under high-speed stream driving.
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