TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence for injection of relativistic electrons into the Earth's outer radiation belt via intense substorm electric fields
AU - Dai, Lei
AU - Wygant, John R.
AU - Cattell, Cynthia A.
AU - Thaller, Scott
AU - Kersten, Kris
AU - Breneman, Aaron
AU - Tang, Xiangwei
AU - Friedel, Reiner H.
AU - Claudepierre, Seth G.
AU - Tao, Xin
PY - 2014/2/28
Y1 - 2014/2/28
N2 - Observation and model results accumulated in the last decade indicate that substorms can promptly inject relativistic 'killer' electrons (≥MeV) in addition to 10-100 keV subrelativistic populations. Using measurements from Cluster, Polar, LANL, and GOES satellites near the midnight sector, we show in two events that intense electric fields, as large as 20 mV/m, associated with substorm dipolarization are associated with injections of relativistic electrons into the outer radiation belt. Enhancements of hundreds of keV electrons at dipolarization in the magnetotail can account for the injected MeV electrons through earthward transport. These observations provide evidence that substorm electric fields inject relativistic electrons by transporting magnetotail electrons into the outer radiation belt. In these two events, injected relativistic electrons dominated the substorm timescale enhancement of MeV electrons as observed at geosynchronous orbit. Key Points Intense substorm electric fields inject relativistic electrons into radiation belts
AB - Observation and model results accumulated in the last decade indicate that substorms can promptly inject relativistic 'killer' electrons (≥MeV) in addition to 10-100 keV subrelativistic populations. Using measurements from Cluster, Polar, LANL, and GOES satellites near the midnight sector, we show in two events that intense electric fields, as large as 20 mV/m, associated with substorm dipolarization are associated with injections of relativistic electrons into the outer radiation belt. Enhancements of hundreds of keV electrons at dipolarization in the magnetotail can account for the injected MeV electrons through earthward transport. These observations provide evidence that substorm electric fields inject relativistic electrons by transporting magnetotail electrons into the outer radiation belt. In these two events, injected relativistic electrons dominated the substorm timescale enhancement of MeV electrons as observed at geosynchronous orbit. Key Points Intense substorm electric fields inject relativistic electrons into radiation belts
KW - radiation belt relativistic electrons
KW - substorm dipolarization
KW - substorm electric fields
KW - substorm injection
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U2 - 10.1002/2014GL059228
DO - 10.1002/2014GL059228
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84894232128
SN - 0094-8276
VL - 41
SP - 1133
EP - 1141
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
IS - 4
ER -