CAREER: Understanding the Role of Inductive Electric Fields in Particle Energization

地球周围的太空环境充满了在磁场和电场之间流动的等离子体。等离子体中的粒子与这些场相互作用，获得能量，影响它们在整个空间区域(称为磁层)的运动和相互作用。理解嵌入在磁场中的等离子体是该项目的目标，具有许多科学、工业、国家安全和医疗应用--包括与空间天气建模和预报直接相关。该项目每年将支持一名职业早期女性研究员、研究生、博士后研究员和四名本科生的研究。此外，抽象的电和磁概念的3D可视化将在虚拟现实中进行-一个身临其境、探索和引人入胜的环境。可视化将用于针对本科工程、科学、数学、医学生和高中生的物理课程。该项目的主要目标是填补我们对地球磁层中粒子加速的认识空白，并确定电场的性质和结构如何有助于该区域的能量和粒子运输。具体地说，目标是了解粒子注入是如何形成的，并由不同的电场(电势与感应电场)驱动，以及它们来自哪里。为此，这项工作包括：(1)确定感应电场对环流粒子激励的作用，从而了解注入驱动机制；(2)确定和量化由于磁层顶电流增强而产生的感应电场与由于磁场偶极而产生的感应电场对环电流发展和衰减的作用；以及(3)确定感应电场在预测地磁活动中的作用。这包括详细的计算机数值模拟和数据模型与NASA磁层多尺度(MMS)和范艾伦探测器任务的现场测量结果的比较。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The space environment surrounding Earth is filled with plasma flowing among magnetic and electric fields. Particles in this plasma interact with these fields, gaining energy that affects their motion and interactions throughout this region of space, known as the magnetosphere. The understanding of plasmas embedded in magnetic fields, the goal of this project, has many scientific, industrial, national security, and medical applications - including direct relevance to space weather modeling and forecasting. The project will support research for an early career female researcher, graduate student, post-doctoral researcher, and four undergraduate students each year. Additionally, 3D visualizations of abstract electricity and magnetism concepts will be made in Virtual Reality - an immersive, exploratory, and engaging environment. The visualizations will be used for physics curricula aimed towards undergraduate engineering, science, mathematics, and medical students and high school students. The primary objective of this project is to fill the gap in our understanding of particle accelerations in the terrestrial magnetosphere and determine how the nature and structure of the electric field contributes to energization and particle transport in this region. Specifically, the goal is to understand how particle injections are formed and driven by different sources of electric field (potential vs. inductive) and where they originate from. To do this, the work includes (1) determining the role of inductive electric fields to ring current particle energization leading to understanding of the injection driver mechanism; (2) determining and quantifying the role of inductive electric fields due to intensification of the magnetopause current vs inductive electric fields due to magnetic field dipolarizations to ring current development and decay; and (3) determining the role of inductive electric fields in predicting geomagnetic activity. This involves detailed numerical computer simulations and data-model comparisons with in-situ measurements from NASA's Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) and Van Allen Probes missions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.