CEDAR: Quantitiative Assessment of Proton Aurora Using State-of-the-art Models

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This is a 3-year observation and modeling research project aimed at characterizing incident, energetic protons from ground-based wide-field spectroscopic observations of H emissions, the so-called proton aurora. The modeling effort will combine a comprehensive proton transport code with a radiative transfer model to assess the contamination of H Balmer Doppler profiles from nearby proton aurora. Two high resolution ( 0.1 nm) imaging spectrographs (CESAR and HiTIES) will be deployed, first at Poker Flat and then separated by 325 km, and data from these will be combined with measurements from the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) as well as from the PFISR facility spectrograph to verify the theoretical predictions. This will allow for accurate derivation of mean energy and energy flux of the incoming protons from the H Doppler profiles and this result will be validated with complementary radio and space-based observations. The improved analysis technique will be employed, specifically, to quantify the energy changes of the incoming protons during active times such as during substorms. The research project will be mainly conducted by postdoctoral fellow in collaboration with and under the guidance of an international team of senior scientists with a broad range of expertise. An interdisciplinary team of modelers and experimentalists from several institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom will work together on this project.