Van Allen Probe Database of Near-Equatorial Electric Drift Measurements: The Gateway to Informed Modeling of Plasma Transport in the Earth's Inner Magnetosphere

摘要

Even very close to Earth, plasma transport observations are inconsistent with the theoretical picture in which the large-scale electric field is a superposition of corotation and convection electric fields. The instruments onboard the Van Allen Probes are the first to be accurate enough to measure the electric drift around the magnetic equator, even below 3 Earth radii. They provide much-needed ground truth in a region of space historically deprived from in-situ electric field measurements. Therefore, the Van Allen Probe database of near-equatorial electric drift measurements represents our first opportunity (1) to further our understanding of the coupling between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere at middle and low latitudes and (2) to fully question, confirm, or disprove the validity of various models and assumptions that have been made to describe plasma transport in the Earth's inner magnetosphere. In the following, we present the latest advances in understanding plasma transport in the Earth's inner magnetosphere enabled by the analysis of Van Allen Probe electric drift measurements.