Identification

Title

Energetic electron precipitation during sawtooth injections

Abstract

We present simultaneous riometer observations of cosmic noise absorption in the nightside and dawn-noon sectors during sawtooth particle injections during 18 April 2002. Energetic electron precipitation (>30 keV) is a feature of magnetospheric substorms and cosmic radio noise absorption acts as a proxy for qualitatively measuring this precipitation. This event provides an opportunity to compare the absorption that accompanies periodic electron injections with the accepted paradigm of substorm-related absorption. We consider whether the absorption is consistent with the premise that these injections are quasi-periodic substorms and study the effects of sustained activity on the level of precipitation. Four consecutive electron injection events have been identified from the LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) geosynchronous data; the first two showing that additional activity can occur within the 2-4 h sawtooth periodicity. The first three events have accompanying absorption on the nightside that demonstrate good agreement with the expected pattern of substorm-absorption: discrete spike events with poleward motion at the onset followed by equatorward moving structures and more diffuse absorption, correlated with optical observations. Dayside absorption is linked to gradient-curvature drifting electrons observed at geostationary orbit and it is shown that low fluxes can lead to a lack of absorption as precipitation is suppressed; precipitation begins when the drifting electron flux surpasses some critical level following continuous injections of electrons from the magnetotail. In addition it is shown that the apparent motion of absorption determined from an azimuthal chain of riometers exhibits an acceleration that may be indicative of an energisation of the drifting electron population.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d77d2vcg

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-06-04T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact