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Investigation of the Chirikov resonance overlap criteria for equatorial magnetosonic waves
Author(s) -
Walker S. N.,
Balikhin M. A.,
Canu P.,
CornilleauWehrlin N.,
Moiseenko I.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/2015ja021718
Subject(s) - physics , harmonics , diffusion , computational physics , continuous spectrum , spectrum (functional analysis) , spectral line , electron , resonance (particle physics) , atomic physics , quantum mechanics , voltage
Observations of equatorial magnetosonic waves made during the Cluster Inner Magnetospheric Campaign clearly show discrete spectra consisting of emissions around harmonics of the proton gyrofrequency. Equatorial magnetosonic waves are important because of their ability to efficiently scatter electrons in energy and pitch angle. This wave‐particle interaction is numerically modeled through the use of diffusion coefficients, calculated based on a continuous spectrum such as that observed by spectrum analyzers. Using the Chirikov overlap resonance criterion, the calculation of the diffusion coefficient will be assessed to determine whether they should be calculated based on the discrete spectral features as opposed to a continuous spectrum. For the period studied, it is determined that the discrete nature of the waves does fulfill the Chirikov overlap criterion and so the use of quasi‐linear theory with the assumption of a continuous frequency spectrum is valid for the calculation of diffusion coefficients.