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Modeling the loss of inner belt protons by magnetic field line curvature scattering


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dc.creatorWeichao, Tu
dc.creatorCowee, M
dc.creatorLiu, K
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-30T13:31:41Z
dc.date.available2022-09-30T13:31:41Z
dc.date.created2014
dc.identifier10.1002/2014JA019864en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2014JA019864en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/50372
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.35099/aurora-440
dc.description.abstractThe sudden loss of energetic protons in the inner radiation belt has been observed during geomagnetic storms. It is hypothesized that this sudden loss occurs because of changes in the geomagnetic field configuration which lead to a breakdown of the first adiabatic invariant, mu, in a process called magnetic field line curvature scattering or mu scattering. Comparison of observations to various analytic model predictions for mu scattering induced loss has, however, yielded discrepancies. To better understand how well the analytic models predict the proton loss, test particle simulations are carried out for various magnetic field configurations. Although our simulation results agree well with the analytic models for single-scattering events, the results after cumulative mu scattering can show significant disagreement with the theoretical predictions based on analytic models. In particular, we find the assumption that protons with predicted initial delta mu/mu 0.01 or epsilon > 0.1 are ultimately lost overestimates the proton loss. Based on the test particle simulation results, we develop a new empirical model, called the epsilon-onset model, to predict the minimum value of e at which all protons of a given pitch angle and energy can be assumed to be lost due to mu scattering. By applying our epsilon-onset model as the variable cutoff condition between trapping and detrapping, we obtain very good agreement between theoretical predictions and the simulation results for a range of Kp, suggesting that the epsilon-onset model can potentially serve as an easy-to-use and more reliable predictor of inner belt proton loss due to mu scattering than the previously used fixed-valued cutoff conditions.en_US
dc.formatPDFen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries2169-9380en_US
dc.rights©American Geophysical Union 2014. This is this the version of record co-published by the American Geophysical Union and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. It is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Item should be cited as: Tu, Weichao, M. M. Cowee, and Kaijun Liu. "Modeling the loss of inner belt protons by magnetic field line curvature scattering." Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics 119.7 (2014): 5638-5650.en_US
dc.titleModeling the loss of inner belt protons by magnetic field line curvature scatteringen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dc.type.genreJournal Article, Academic Journalen_US
dc.citation.volume119en_US
dc.citation.issue7en_US
dc.citation.spage5638en_US
dc.citation.epage5650en_US
dc.description.statusPublisheden_US
dc.description.peerreviewYesen_US
dc.creator.orcid0000-0003-3117-4030en_US
dc.creator.orcid0000-0001-5882-1328en_US
dc.creator.orcid0000-0003-4547-3269en_US

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