Submitting Campus

Daytona Beach

Department

Physical Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication/Presentation Date

8-19-2017

Abstract/Description

Earth’s outer radiation belt electrons are highly dynamic. We study the detailed characteristics of relativistic electrons in the outer belt using measurements from the Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE) mission, a low Earth orbit (LEO) CubeSat, which traverses the radiation belt four times in one orbit (~1.5 h) and has the advantage of measuring the dynamic activities of the electrons including their rapid precipitation. We focus on the measured electron response to geomagnetic activity for different energies to show that there are abundant sub-MeV electrons in the inner belt and slot region. These electrons are further enhanced during active times, while there is a lack of >1.63 MeV electrons in these regions. We also show that the variation of measured electron flux at LEO is strongly dependent on the local magnetic field strength, which is far from a dipole approximation. Moreover, a specific precipitation band, which happened on 19 January 2013, is investigated based on the conjunctive measurement of CSSWE, the Balloon Array for Radiation belt Relativistic Electron Losses, and one of the Polar Operational Environmental Satellites. In this precipitation band event, the net loss of the 0.58–1.63 MeV electrons (L = 3.5–6) is estimated to account for 6.8% of the total electron content.

Publication Title

Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JA024309

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Grant or Award Name

NSF CubeSat/magnetospheric program grant AGS 1443749 and NASA grant NNX15AF56G, a subcontract (FA9453-14-M-0256) from the Air Force Research Laboratory, and by NASA/RBSP-ECT funding through JHU/APL contract 967399 under prime NASA contract NAS5-01072

Additional Information

Dr. Zhang was not affiliated with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at the time this paper was published.

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