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Free keywords:
Earth's radiation belt; ring current; electron precipitation; electron lifetime
Abstract:
In near-Earth space, a large population of high-energy electrons are trapped by Earth’s magnetic field. These energetic electrons are trapped in the regions called Earth’s ring current and radiation belts. They are very dynamic and show a very strong dependence on solar wind and geomagnetic conditions. These energetic electrons can be dangerous to satellites in the near-Earth space. Therefore, it is very important to understand the mechanisms which drive the dynamics of these energetic electrons. Wave-particle interaction is one of the most important mechanisms. Among the waves that can be encountered by the energetic electrons when they move around our Earth, whistler mode chorus waves can cause both acceleration and the loss of energetic electrons in the Earth's radiation belts and ring current. Using more than 5 years of wave measurements from NASA’s Van Allen Probe mission, Wang et al (2019) developed chorus wave models which depend on magnetic local time (MLT), Magnetic Latitude (MLat), L-shell, and geomagnetic condition index Kp. To quantify the effect of chorus waves on energetic electrons, we calculated the bounce-averaged quasi-linear diffusion coefficients using the chorus wave model developed by Wang et al (2019) and extended to higher latitudes according to Wang and Shprits (2019). Using these diffusion coefficients, we calculated the lifetime of the electrons with an energy range from 1 keV to 2 MeV. In each MLT, we calculate the lifetime for each energy and L-shell using two different methods according to Shprits et al (2007) and Albert and Shprits (2009). We make the calculated electron lifetime database available here. Please notice that the chorus wave model by Wang et al (2019) is valid when Kp <= 6. If the user wants to use this lifetime database for Kp >6, please be careful and contact the authors.
