GEM: Study the Precipitation of Radiation Belt Electrons during the Rapid Dropout Events

随着货车艾伦探测器在2012年的发射，辐射带研究的新时代已经开始。这是一个研究辐射带电子动力学的科学和社会重要问题的项目。 这项研究的重点将是了解磁暴期间发生的电子损失。 这些是重要的，因为相对论电子的通量在几个小时内减少了一个数量级。对此有两种可能的解释：一种是通过磁层顶损失到太阳风中，另一种是由于降水损失到大气中。前者相对容易评估，但后者要困难得多，因为磁层中的损失锥很小，而且卫星观测提供的情况有限。该提案将采用一种创造性的方法，将货车艾伦探测器和美国国家海洋和大气管理局POES卫星的卫星观测与新的漂移扩散模拟相结合，以量化损失。研究小组将首先确定哪些观测到的事件是磁层顶损失的候选者，哪些是降水损失的候选者，哪些是两种损失的组合。然后，他们将反复使用观察和模拟来改进模拟。 他们将确定的俯仰角扩散系数作为一个功能的磁本地时间，并从本地时间和L壳（径向）依赖的等离子体波负责的沉淀。他们将把这与货车艾伦探测器的波观测结果进行比较。他们计划对POES观测和NSF科罗拉多学生空间天气实验（CSSWE）的观测进行详细的校准。此外，该项目还将资助一名年轻女科学家和一名研究生。最后，详细校准的POES和CSSWE数据将是有用的远远超出了这个应用程序。

With the launch of the Van Allen Probes in 2012 a new era in radiation belt studies has begun. This is a project to investigate the scientifically and societally important issue of radiation belt electron dynamics. The emphasis in this research will be on understanding the losses of electrons that occur during magnetic storms. These are significant in that the flux of relativistic electrons decreases by an order of magnitude in a few hours. There are two possible explanations for this: One is loss to the solar wind through the magnetopause and the other is loss to the atmosphere due to precipitation. The former is relatively easy to evaluate but the latter is much more difficult because the loss cone is small in the magnetosphere and because satellite observations provide a limited picture. This proposal will apply a creative approach combining satellite observations from the Van Allen Probes and NOAA POES satellites and a new Drift-Diffusion simulation to quantify the losses. The team will start by determining which observed events are candidates for magnetopause loss, which are candidates for precipitation loss and which are combinations of both types of loss. Then they will use the observations and the simulation iteratively to improve the simulation. They will determine the pitch angle diffusion coefficients as a function of magnetic local time and from that the local time and L shell (radial) dependence of the plasma waves responsible for the precipitation. They will compare this with Van Allen Probes wave observations. They plan a detailed calibration of the POES observations and those from the NSF Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE).Understanding electron dynamics is important societally for understanding space weather. In addition this project will support a young woman scientist and a graduate student. Finally the detailed calibration of the POES and CSSWE data will be useful well beyond this application.