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Thermal electron acceleration by localized bursts of electric field in the radiation belts
Author(s) -
Artemyev A. V.,
Agapitov O. V.,
Mozer F.,
Krasnoselskikh V.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl061248
Subject(s) - physics , electric field , electron , van allen radiation belt , field line , computational physics , acceleration , magnetic field , atomic physics , magnetosphere , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics
In this paper we investigate the resonant interaction of thermal ∼10–100 eV electrons with a burst of electrostatic field that results in electron acceleration to kilovolt energies. This single burst contains a large parallel electric field of one sign and a much smaller, longer‐lasting parallel field of the opposite sign. The Van Allen Probe spacecraft often observes clusters of spatially localized bursts in the Earth's outer radiation belts. These structures propagate mostly away from the geomagnetic equator and share properties of soliton‐like nonlinear electron acoustic waves: a velocity of propagation is about the thermal velocity of cold electrons (∼3000–10,000 km/s), and a spatial scale of electric field localization along the field lines is about the Debye radius of hot electrons (∼5–30 km). We model the nonlinear resonant interaction of these electric field structures and cold background electrons.