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Radiation Belt Electron Acceleration By Chorus Waves During The 17 March 2013 Storm, W. Li, R. M. Thorne, Q. Ma, B. Ni, J. Bortnik, D. N. Baker, Harlan E. Spence, Geoffrey Reeves, S. G. Kanekal, J. C. Green, C A. Kletzing, W. S. Kurth, G. B. Hospodarsky, J. B. Blake, Joseph F. Fennell, S. Claudepierre
Radiation Belt Electron Acceleration By Chorus Waves During The 17 March 2013 Storm, W. Li, R. M. Thorne, Q. Ma, B. Ni, J. Bortnik, D. N. Baker, Harlan E. Spence, Geoffrey Reeves, S. G. Kanekal, J. C. Green, C A. Kletzing, W. S. Kurth, G. B. Hospodarsky, J. B. Blake, Joseph F. Fennell, S. Claudepierre
Physics & Astronomy
Abstract
Local acceleration driven by whistler-mode chorus waves is fundamentally important for accelerating seed electron populations to highly relativistic energies in the outer radiation belt. In this study, we quantitatively evaluate chorus-driven electron acceleration during the 17 March 2013 storm, when the Van Allen Probes observed very rapid electron acceleration up to several MeV within ~12 hours. A clear radial peak in electron phase space density (PSD) observed near L* ~4 indicates that an internal local acceleration process was operating. We construct the global distribution of chorus wave intensity from the low-altitude electron measurements made by multiple Polar Orbiting Environmental …