Energetic Electron Penetration Into Inner Radiation Zone

Tuesday, 6 March 2018: 10:50
Longshot and Bogey (Hotel Quinta da Marinha)
J. F. Fennell1, Drew L. Turner2, J. L. Roeder3, Seth G Claudepierre4, J Bernard Blake4, James H. Clemmons5, Craig Kletzing6, Shrikanth G Kanekal7 and Allison N Jaynes8, (1)Aerospace Corporation Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (2)Aerospace Corporation, SPACE SCIENCES DEPARTMENT, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (3)The Aerospace Corp, Space Sciences Department, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (4)Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (5)Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA, United States, (6)University of Iowa, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa City, IA, United States, (7)Heliophysics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (8)University of Colorado at Boulder, LASP, Boulder, CO, United States
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Abstract:
Electron transport and penetration into the radiation belt slot region is fairly common for electrons with energies <1 MeV. However, the transport and penetration of electrons deep into the inner radiation zone, L*<2, is not common. We will show observations taken during a moderate magnetic storm (SYM-H ~ -140 nT) on 28-29 May 2017 when the 20-200 keV electrons were observed to penetrate down to L*~1.5 following storm-time substorm injections. The electrons had highly structured flux versus L* profiles. At the same time chorus emissions were observed down to L*~1.7 in regions where the density, estimated from the upper hybrid resonance, was 800-1600 cm-3 indicating the chorus was inside the plasmasphere. Both Van Allen Probes observed the low L* electron penetration and the chorus emissions during perigee traversals with the satellites separated by about three hours. The traversals occurred very close to the magnetic equator. We will compare and discuss these results with respect to recent observations by Turner et al. 2015 and 2017.

Turner, D. L., et al. (2015), Energetic electron injections deep into the inner magnetosphere associated with substorm activity Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 2079–2087, doi: 10.1002/ 2015GL063225.

Turner, D. L., et al. (2017), Investigating the source of near-relativistic and relativistic electrons in Earth’s inner radiation belt, J. Geophys. Res. Space Physics, 122, 695–710, doi:10.1002/2016JA023600

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