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Duskside relativistic electron precipitation as measured by SAMPEX: A statistical survey
Author(s) -
Comess Max D.,
Smith David M.,
Selesnick Richard S.,
Millan Robyn M.,
Sample John G.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/jgra.50481
Subject(s) - electron precipitation , van allen radiation belt , physics , astrophysics , magnetosphere , population , earth's magnetic field , geophysics , nuclear physics , magnetic field , demography , plasma , quantum mechanics , sociology
Evidence for duskside relativistic electron precipitation (DREP) within the Earth's outer radiation belt has historically been seen in a few sets of high altitude balloon data (MAXIS, MINIS, INTERBOA), and in satellite data. We present statistical evidence that the relativistic electron precipitation events from the outer radiation belt with e ‐folding energies > 0.5 MeV are concentrated in the dusk‐to‐midnight sector, based on a survey of data collected by the SAMPEX satellite from 1992 to 2004. A correlation between spectral hardness and duskside MLT is observed in our sample, the largest studied to date. Out of 9380 precipitation events within the bounce loss cone, 1048 are observed to have exponentially falling spectra with e ‐folding energies above 0.5 MeV (“hard events”) and 1648 events below 0.2 MeV. Of the hard events, 81% occur within 12 h to 24 h MLT, compared to only 37% of events having e ‐folding energies below 0.2 MeV. With microbursts removed from this softer population the percentage of duskside events rises to 46%. The hard events occur at slightly elevated levels of geomagnetic activity (Ap and Dst) relative to softer nonmicroburst events, but these correlations are much weaker than for microbursts. The hard events are observed to peak in occurrence at L ~ 5.5, significantly higher than nonmicroburst softer events, even though the opposite might be expected from compression of the magnetosphere due to the more negative average Dst of the hard events. The hard events are most prevalent during the declining phase of the 11 year solar cycle.