TY - JOUR

T1 - Electron number density, temperature and energy density at GEO and links to the solar wind

T2 - a simple predictive capability

AU - Hartley, Dave

AU - Denton, Michael

AU - Rodriguez, Juan

N1 - ©2014. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2014/6

Y1 - 2014/6

N2 - Many authors have studied the outer radiation belts response to different solar wind drivers, with the majority investigating electron flux variations. Using partial moments (electron number density, temperature and energy density) from GOES-13 during 2011 allows for changes in the number of electrons and the temperature of the electrons to be distinguished, which is not possible with the outputs of individual instrument channels. This study aims to produce a coarse predictive capability of the partial moments from GOES-13 by determining which solar wind conditions exhibit the strongest relationship with electron variations at GEO. Investigating how the electron distribution at GEO is affected by fluctuations in this primary driver, both instantaneous and time delayed, allows for this to be achieved. These predictive functions are then tested against data from 2012. It is found that using solely the solar wind velocity as a driver results in predicted values that accurately follow the general trend of the observed moments. This study is intended to make further progress in quantifying the relationship between the solar wind and electron number density, temperature and energy density at GEO. Our results provide a coarse predictive capability of these quantities that can be expanded upon in future studies to incorporate other solar wind drivers to improve accuracy.

AB - Many authors have studied the outer radiation belts response to different solar wind drivers, with the majority investigating electron flux variations. Using partial moments (electron number density, temperature and energy density) from GOES-13 during 2011 allows for changes in the number of electrons and the temperature of the electrons to be distinguished, which is not possible with the outputs of individual instrument channels. This study aims to produce a coarse predictive capability of the partial moments from GOES-13 by determining which solar wind conditions exhibit the strongest relationship with electron variations at GEO. Investigating how the electron distribution at GEO is affected by fluctuations in this primary driver, both instantaneous and time delayed, allows for this to be achieved. These predictive functions are then tested against data from 2012. It is found that using solely the solar wind velocity as a driver results in predicted values that accurately follow the general trend of the observed moments. This study is intended to make further progress in quantifying the relationship between the solar wind and electron number density, temperature and energy density at GEO. Our results provide a coarse predictive capability of these quantities that can be expanded upon in future studies to incorporate other solar wind drivers to improve accuracy.

KW - geosynchronous orbit

KW - radiation belt

KW - energetic electrons

KW - GOES

KW - MAGED

KW - energy density

U2 - 10.1002/2014JA019779

DO - 10.1002/2014JA019779

M3 - Journal article

VL - 119

SP - 4556

EP - 4571

JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

SN - 2169-9402

IS - 6

ER -