Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 48, Issue 23, Pages -Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095933
Keywords
chorus waves; magnetospheric physics; wave-particle interaction; energetic electron precipitation; wave propagation; ionosphere
Categories
Funding
- NASA [80NSSC19K0282, 80NSSC21K0728, 80NSSC21K0729]
- NSF [2026375]
- JHU/APL contract [922613]
- European Space Agency Third-Party Mission Programme
- Canadian Space Agency
- NSERC [TGPIN-2014-06069]
- Canadian Space Agency's Geospace Observatory program
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences [2026375] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The study on ducted chorus waves suggests that they may play a crucial role in driving relativistic electron precipitation. This observation provides important insights into the transport process of electrons from the magnetosphere to the atmosphere.
Whistler-mode chorus waves are critical for driving resonant scattering and loss of radiation belt relativistic electrons into the atmosphere. The resonant energies of electrons scattered by chorus waves increase at increasingly higher magnetic latitudes. Propagation of chorus waves to middle and high latitudes is hampered by wave divergence and Landau damping but is promoted otherwise if ducted by density irregularities. Although ducting theories have been proposed since the 1960s, no conjugate observation of ducted chorus propagation from the equatorial magnetosphere to the ionosphere has been observed so far. Here we provide such an observation, for the first time, using conjugate spacecraft measurements. Ducted chorus waves maintain significant wave power upon reaching the ionosphere, which is confirmed by ray-tracing simulations. Our results suggest that ducted chorus waves may be an important driver for relativistic electron precipitation.
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