Rapid enhancement of radiation belt electron fluxes due to substorm dipolarization of the geomagnetic field

The classical pure radial diffusion mechanism appears not to fully explain the frequently observed rapid enhancement in the timescales of minutes to hours in the radiation belt electron fluxes in the Earth's magnetosphere. We here consider other physical mechanisms, such as energization mechanisms associated with substorm processes, to account for these sudden increases. A three‐dimensional electron kinetic model is used to simulate the dynamics of the geomagnetically trapped population of radiation belt electrons during a substorm injection event. In the past this model has been extensively used to study dynamics of energetic ions in the ring current. This work, for the first time, constitutes the development of a combined convection and diffusion model to radiation belt electrons in the 0.04–4 MeV kinetic energy range. The Tsyganenko 89 geomagnetic field model is used to simulate the time‐varying terrestrial magnetosphere during the growth phase elongation and the expansion phase contraction. We find that inductive electric field associated with the magnetic reconfiguration process is needed in order to transport substorm electrons into the trapped particle region of the magnetosphere. The maximum enhancement in energetic electron fluxes is found to be located around the geosynchronous orbit location ( L = 6.6), with up to 2 orders of magnitude enhancement in the total fluxes (0.04–4 MeV). Although this enhancement in the inner magnetosphere is very sensitive to the temperature and, to a less extent, density of the source population in the plasma sheet, we suggest that the substorm‐associated energization in the magnetotail and the subsequent adiabatic acceleration in the earthward region account for the enhanced MeV electrons (killer electrons) seen at the geosynchronous orbit during storms and substorms.