1. Atmospheric scattering of energetic electrons from near-Earth space
- Author
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Jessica Artinger, Jordan Miller, Maxwell Chung, Xiao-Jia Zhang, Ethan Tsai, Kathryn Hector, Austin Villegas, Patrick Cruce, Christopher Shaffer, Duncan Frederick, Stephen Sundin, Elisa Park, Michael Anderson, Anthony Gildemeister, Austin Norris, David Leneman, Reuben Rozario, Rommel Castro, Akhil Palla, Carter Pedersen, Suyash Kumar, Jeffrey Asher, Jason Mao, Andrei Runov, Erica Xie, Anais Zarifian, Robert J. Strangeway, R. Caron, Kevin Lian, Benjamin Domae, Micah Cliffe, Cass Wong, Wen Li, Wynne Turner, Alex Gilbert, Laura Iglesias, Michelle Nguyen, Kelly Nguyen, Emmons McKinney, Cian Costello, Matt Wasden, Nick Adair, Jiashu Wu, Ian Fox, Akshaya Subramanian, Anton Artemyev, Chanel Young, Drew Turner, Gary Zhang, James King, Sarah Eldin, Alexander Gonzalez, Matt Nuesca, Donna Branchevsky, Emmanuel Masongsong, Graham Wing, J. B. Blake, Gary Chao, Lydia Adair, Renee Krieger, Aysen Tan, Kyle Colton, Matthew Allen, Nathan Chung, M. J. Lawson, Rebecca Yap, Michael Capitelli, Eric Grimes, C. Wilkins, Richard E. Wirz, Alexa Roosnovo, Ryan Seaton, Brayden Hesford, Sharvani Jha, Lauren Fitgibbon, Cynthia Russell, Erik Rye, Michael Arreola-Zamora, Danny Depe, Jiang Liu, Vassilis Angelopoulos, Ziyuan Qu, and Alex Flemming
- Subjects
Physics ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Physics::Space Physics ,Near earth space ,Diffuse sky radiation ,Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics ,Electron ,Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics ,Computational physics - Abstract
In near-Earth space, the magnetosphere, energetic electrons (tens to thousands of kiloelectron volts) orbit around Earth, forming the radiation belts. When scattered by magnetospheric processes, these electrons precipitate to the upper atmosphere, where they deplete ozone, a radiatively active gas, modifying global atmospheric circulation. Relativistic electrons (those above a few hundred kiloelectron volts), can reach the lowest altitudes and have the strongest effects on the upper atmosphere; their loss from the magnetosphere is also important for space weather. Previous models have only considered magnetospheric scattering and precipitation of energetic electrons; atmospheric scattering of such electrons has not been adequately considered, principally due to lack of observations. Here we report the first observations of this process. We find that atmospherically-scattered energetic (relativistic) electrons form a low-intensity, persistent “drizzle”, whose integrated energy flux is comparable to (greater than) that of the more intense but ephemeral precipitation by magnetospheric scattering. Thus, atmospheric scattering of energetic electrons is important for global atmospheric circulation, radiation belt flux evolution, and the repopulation of the magnetosphere with lower-energy, secondary electrons.
- Published
- 2021