Electron Acceleration, Transport and Loss in Planetary Radiation Belts

电子是如何在行星和天体物理磁场中加速和丢失的，这是尚未解决的主要问题。在地球上，有一项重大进展：频率为几千赫兹的强烈电磁波可以通过回旋共振波-粒子相互作用将电子加速到相对论能量。这一结果改变了持续了40年或更长时间的关于地球辐射带的普遍接受的想法，并促使美国国家航空航天局的范艾伦探测器任务和日本的ERG任务等新的卫星任务来测试这一想法和相关想法。在木星和土星的磁场中也观察到了强烈的电磁波，这表明地球上发生的同样的共振加速和损耗过程可能对所有行星辐射带都很重要。这一提议的目标是检验这样一个假设，即回旋共振波-粒子相互作用是地球、木星和土星的主要电子加速和损失过程，并在这些行星的辐射带形成中发挥主要作用。我们的研究结果将有助于确定电子回旋共振加速和损失过程是否是更广泛适用于太阳和其他天体的普遍过程。它将有助于为未来的航天器任务设定新的研究目标，为年轻科学家提供研究培训，开发将直接用于空间保险、卫星建设和卫星服务行业的空间天气计算机模型，并留下将在项目完成后很长一段时间内持续的谅解遗产。

How electrons are accelerated and lost inside planetary and astrophysical magnetic fields are major unresolved questions. At Earth there has been a major advance: that intense electromagnetic waves at frequencies of a few kiloHertz can accelerate electrons up to relativistic energies via cyclotron resonant wave-particle interactions. This result has transformed generally accepted ideas on the Earth's radiation belts that have lasted 40 years or more, and has spurred new satellite missions such as NASA's Van Allen Probes mission and the Japanese ERG mission to test this and related ideas. Intense electromagnetic waves are also observed inside the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Saturn which suggests that the same resonant acceleration and loss processes that occur at Earth could be important for all planetary radiation belts. The goal of this proposal is to test the hypothesis that cyclotron resonant wave-particle interactions are major electron acceleration and loss processes at Earth, Jupiter and Saturn, and play a major role in the formation of radiation belts at these planets. The results of our research will help determine whether electron cyclotron resonant acceleration and loss processes are universal processes that are more widely applicable to the Sun and other astrophysical objects. It will help set new research goals for future spacecraft missions to the planets, provide research training for young scientists, develop computer models for space weather that will be of direct use to the space insurance, satellite construction, and satellite service industries, and leave a legacy of understanding that will last long after the completion of the project.