SM41D-2501
Electric Fields Associated with Deep Injections of 10s to 100s keV Electrons in the Inner Magnetosphere
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Sam Califf1, Xinlin Li1, Allison N Jaynes2, Hong Zhao3 and David Malaspina4, (1)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)University of Colorado at Boulder, LASP, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)University of Colorado at Boulder, LASP and Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)University of Colorado, Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Boulder, CO, United States
Abstract:
Recent observations by HOPE and MagEIS onboard the Van Allen Probes show frequent penetration of 10s to 100s keV electrons through the slot region and into the inner belt, resulting in an abundant electron population below L=3. The conventional picture is that the source populations of these 10s to 100s keV electrons originate in the plasma sheet and are injected (along with plasma sheet ions) into the inner magnetosphere either through enhancements in the large-scale convection electric field and/or through earthward propagating dipolarization fronts associated with substorms. In such cases the inward radial limit of the injections should coincide with the plasmapause. However, these electron injections often extend inside the plasmasphere, are observed far earthward of the typically accepted “flow-braking” region for dipolarization fronts, and occur at much lower L shells than injections of ions with similar energies. We investigate the electric fields associated with these deep electron injections using data from the Van Allen Probes and THEMIS in order to shed light on the underlying mechanisms that allow them to penetrate so far into the inner magnetosphere.
