GEM: Empirical Modeling of Plasmaspheric Density Distribution and Investigations of Plasmaspheric Dynamic

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This project will develop an empirical model of the plasmasphere electron density distribution. The model will be parameterized by solar wind conditions (interplanetary magnetic field, solar wind speed and density) and by the location within the plasmasphere (radial distance and magnetic local time). The project will use data from IMAGE satellite's Radio Plasma Imager instrument and simulations performed with the Dynamic Fluid-Kinetic model. The empirical model will be used to study plasmaspheric refilling after magnetic storms and the physical mechanisms that couple the plasmasphere to the ionosphere. The empirical model is likely to be of use in the eventual development of a geospace general circulation model (GGCM) which is one of the primary goals of the NSF Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) program.The Principal Investigator is a recent Ph.D. and will be directing a graduate student and a postdoctoral researcher who is a member of an under-represented group in scientific research.