Cold Plasmaspheric Electrons Affected by ULF Waves in the Inner Magnetosphere: A Van Allen Probes Statistical Study

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Abstract
Six years of Van Allen Probes data are used to investigate cold plasmaspheric electrons affected by ultralow-frequency (ULF) waves in the inner magnetosphere (L<7) including spatial distributions, occurrence conditions, and resonant energy range. Events exhibit a global distribution within L= 4\textendash7 but preferentially occur at L\~5.5\textendash7 in the dayside, while there is higher occurrence rate in the duskside than dawnside. They can occur under different geomagnetic activities and solar wind velocities (VS), but the occurrence rates are increasing with larger AE, |SYMH|, and VS. These features are closely associated with the generation and propagation of ULF waves in Pc4 (45\textendash150 s) and Pc5 (150\textendash600 s) bands. Combined with electron observations from HOPE instrument, the resonant energies inferred from wave power indicate that cold electrons at ones to hundreds of electron volts can be affected by ULF waves. This study may shed new light on further investigations on the acceleration and transportation of cold plasmaspheric particles that would affect plasmaspheric material release to the Earth\textquoterights magnetosphere and instabilities for exciting various waves.
Year of Publication
2019
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Volume
124
Number of Pages
7954-7965
Date Published
10/2019
ISSN Number
2169-9380
URL
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JA027009
DOI
10.1029/2019JA027009
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