The Response of the Energy Content of the Outer Electron Radiation Belt to Geomagnetic Storms

摘要

abstract_textpUsing the data from the Van Allen Probe-A spacecraft, the variability of the total outer radiation belt (2.5 L* 6) electron energy content (TRBEEC) for energetic electrons ( 300 keV) is investigated for the first time during 51 isolated storms spanning from October 2012 to May 2017. The statistical results show that the TRBEEC exhibits no change in 20 of the storms and gets enhanced during 80 of them. The subrelativistic electrons (300-500 keV) and relativistic electrons (0.5-2.0 MeV) equally contribute to the TRBEEC during the main phases, while in the recovery phases, the relativistic electrons contribute up to 80 of the TRBEEC. The results of the superposed epoch analysis of the solar wind parameters and geomagnetic indices indicate that the TRBEEC enhancement events preferably occur during the prolonged southward interplanetary magnetic field period when the solar wind-magnetosphere coupling is more efficient. Meanwhile, the high AE index with intense injections of several hundreds of kiloelectron volt seed electrons also favors the increase of the TRBEEC. Case study shows that there is a localized growing phase space density peak around L* = 4.3 and the chorus wave energy and the gain of TRBEEC are on the same order of magnitude, which may suggest that the enhancement of the TRBEEC is the consequence of the chorus acceleration. Understanding the energy budget of the outer zone electrons can provide more insight into the energy transfer from plasma waves to the energetic electron population, especially for revealing the underlying physics of the energization of outer radiation belt electrons via chorus wave acceleration./p/abstract_text