Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 43, Issue 7, Pages 3009-3016Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2016GL067853
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NSFC [41374166, 41274167, 41204120, 41474141]
- Chinese Key Research Project [2011CB811404]
- JHU/APL [967399, 921647, NAS5-01072]
- EMFISIS [1001057397:01]
- ECT [13-041]
- NASA [NASA NNX13AI61G, NNX14AN85G]
- NSF Geospace Environment Modeling grant [AGS-1103064]
- Nature Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences
- Directorate For Geosciences [1405041] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Radiation belt electrons can exhibit different types of pitch angle distributions in response to various magnetospheric processes. Butterfly distributions, characterized by flux minima at pitch angles around 90 degrees, are broadly observed in both the outer and inner belts and the slot region. Butterfly distributions close to the outer magnetospheric boundary have been attributed to drift shell splitting and losses to the magnetopause. However, their occurrence in the inner belt and the slot region has hitherto not been resolved. By analyzing the particle and wave data collected by the Van Allen Probes during a geomagnetic storm, we combine test particle calculations and Fokker-Planck simulations to reveal that scattering by equatorial magnetosonic waves is a significant cause for the formation of energetic electron butterfly distributions in the inner magnetosphere. Another event shows that a large-amplitude magnetosonic wave in the outer belt can create electron butterfly distributions in just a few minutes.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available