Electromagnetic Waves and their Effects in near-Earth Space

太空时代开始时，詹姆斯货车艾伦有了一个惊人的发现：我们大气层上方的空间充满了高能辐射。那是在1958年，这一发现很快使他成为时代杂志的“年度人物”。从那时起，情况发生了很大变化，我们的社会开始依赖轨道卫星。GPS定位和卫星天气图等应用是我们日常生活的一部分。然而，货车艾伦发现的辐射是一种自然现象，现代卫星经常穿越现在被称为货车艾伦辐射带的两个甜甜圈状区域。这些区域的辐射来自电子和离子，它们被地球磁场捕获并加速到非常高的能量。这些粒子对任何经过它们的卫星都构成严重威胁，主要是因为它们能够损坏和破坏机载电子设备。从20世纪90年代中期开始，越来越明显的是，我们对辐射带中的粒子如何达到如此高的能量，或者是什么过程导致它们偶尔被释放到我们的大气层或深空中，只有有限的了解。旧的物理模型根本无法解释它们的动态和难以预测的性质。目前，国际社会正集中努力解决这一问题，并充分了解辐射带，美国航天局最近发起了一项专门的使命，包括加拿大在内的几个国家也开展了密切相关的项目。** 该提案要求提供资金，以研究一类称为“哨声模式”的电磁波在加速辐射带粒子和将其从辐射带释放方面的作用。该项目利用加拿大和国际空间和地面资源的独特组合，以便使加拿大从即将到来的辐射带密集调查期中获得最大的科学回报。

At the start of the space age, James Van Allen made a startling discovery: the space above our atmosphere is filled with high-energy radiation. That was in 1958, and the discovery soon made him Time Magazine's "Man of the Year". Much has changed since that time, and our society has come to rely on orbiting satellites. Applications such as GPS positioning and satellite weather maps are a part of our daily lives. However, the radiation that Van Allen discovered is a natural phenomenon, and modern satellites often cross through the two doughnut-shaped regions now known as the Van Allen radiation belts. The radiation in these regions comes from electrons and ions which are trapped by the Earth's magnetic field and accelerated to very high energies. These particles pose a serious threat to any satellites passing through them, mostly due to their ability to damage and disrupt on-board electronics.****Starting from the mid-1990s, it became increasingly apparent that we have only a limited understanding of how the particles in the radiation belts reach such high energies, or what processes cause them to be occasionally released into our atmosphere or into deep space. Older physical models simply could not explain their dynamic and hard-to-predict nature. There is presently a focussed international effort to remedy this and to fully understand the radiation belts, with a dedicated mission recently launched by NASA and closely related projects from several nations including Canada.** **This proposal requests funds to examine the role of a class of electromagnetic waves known as "whistler-mode" waves in both accelerating radiation belt particles and releasing them from the belts. It uses a unique combination of Canadian and international resources, both space- and ground-based, in order to maximize the Canadian scientific return from the upcoming intense period of radiation belt investigation.