SM23B-4183:
Measurements from the Van Allen Probes EFW instrument on the role of electric fields in controlling the structure of the inner magnetosphere and the dynamic of particle energization
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
John R Wygant1, Aaron W Breneman2, Lei Dai1, Scott A Thaller1, Cynthia A Cattell1, John W Bonnell3, Forrest Mozer3, Oleksiy V Agapitov3, Robert Ergun4, Daniel N. Baker5, Xinlin Li6, Sam Califf6, David Malaspina7, Mary K Hudson8, Robyn M Millan8, Alexa Halford8, John C Foster9, Philip John Erickson9, Robert J Strangeway10, Eric Donovan11, Craig Kletzing12, William S Kurth12, Scott R Bounds12, J. F. F. Fennell13, Geoffrey D Reeves14, Charles William Smith15, Aleksandr Y Ukhorskiy16 and Matina Gkioulidou17, (1)University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, United States, (2)The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States, (3)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, (4)Univ Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (7)University of Colorado, Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States, (8)Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States, (9)MIT Haystack Observatory, Westford, MA, United States, (10)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (11)University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, (12)University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States, (13)The Aerospace Corp, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (14)Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, United States, (15)University of New Hampshire Main Campus, Durham, NH, United States, (16)Applied Physics Laboratory Johns Hopkins, Laurel, MD, United States, (17)JHU/APL, Laurel, MD, United States
Abstract:
The Van Allen Probes electric field experiment (EFW) provides measurements in the inner magnetosphere of quasi-static electric fields and high time resolution burst recordings of wave electric and magnetic fields (from the EMFISIS sensors) at rates as high as 16.4 ksamples/s. The EFW instrument also provides estimates of plasma density. We present electric field measurements from the two probes of these electric fields along with magnetic fields and particles to illustrate the role of the electric fields in the erosion of the plasmasphere, the energization of ring current particles, shock acceleration of relativistic particles, and near earth plasma sheet injection of energetic particles. These analysis include comparisons to dc magnetic fields provided by the EMFISIS fluxgate magnetometer and energetic particle measurements (from 10 eV to 20 MeV) provided by HOPE, MagEIS, and REPT instruments in the ECT suite. We will also present a preliminary comparison over the complete duration of the mission between the structure and intensity of the large-scale convection electric field and its interplanetary drivers, including CMEs and SIRs.
