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The influence of the Earth's atmosphere on geomagnetically trapped particles
Author(s) -
Walt Martin,
MacDonald William M.
Publication year - 1964
Publication title -
reviews of geophysics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 8.087
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1944-9208
pISSN - 8755-1209
DOI - 10.1029/rg002i004p00543
Subject(s) - atmosphere (unit) , earth's magnetic field , electron , physics , atmosphere of earth , charged particle , atmospheric sciences , atomic physics , earth (classical element) , computational physics , geophysics , magnetic field , ion , nuclear physics , meteorology , astronomy , quantum mechanics
The motion of energetic, charged particles trapped in the geomagnetic field is reviewed, and the methods of calculating the effect of the ambient atmosphere on trapped electrons and protons are presented. The results of these theoretical considerations are compared with the available experimental data to determine the spatial regions where collisions of the trapped particles with atmospheric constituents govern the long‐term behavior of the particles. It is concluded that during periods of minimum solar activity atmospheric collisions are the most important loss mechanism for electrons in the region L ⪝ 1.25, where L is McIlwain's magnetic shell parameter. Above this region the behavior of electrons is controlled by other, at present unknown, forces. For protons, it appears that the atmosphere controls the loss rate for the spatial region L ⪝ 1.4, although the evidence for this conclusion must be considered tentative at present.