SIMULTANEOUS OBSERVATIONS OF LOWER BAND CHORUS EMISSIONS AT THE EQUATOR AND MICROBURST PRECIPITATING ELECTRONS IN THE IONOSPHERE

On December 11, 2016 at 00:12:30 UT, Van Allen Probe-B, at the equator and near midnight, and AC6-B, in the ionosphere, were on magnetic field lines whose 100 km altitude foot points were separated by 600 km. Van Allen Probe-B observed a 30 second burst of lower band chorus waves (with maximum amplitudes >1 nT) at the same time that AC6-B observed intense microburst electrons in the loss cone. One-second averaged variations of the chorus intensity and the microburst electron flux were well-correlated. The low altitude electron flux expected from quasi-linear diffusion of the equatorial electrons by the equatorial chorus is in excellent agreement with the observed, one second averaged, low altitude electron flux. However the large amplitude, <0.5 second duration, low altitude electron pulses require non-linear processes for their explanation.