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American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Research Letters, 6(25), p. 877-880, 1998

DOI: 10.1029/98gl00411

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Banded electron structure formation in the inner magnetosphere

Journal article published in 1998 by M. W. Liemohn ORCID, G. V. Khazanov, J. U. Kozyra
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Banded electron structures in energy-time spectrograms have been observed in the inner magnetosphere concurrent with a sudden relaxation of geomagnetic activity. In this study, the formation of these banded structures is considered with a global, bounce-averaged model of electron transport, and it is concluded that this structure is a natural occurrence when plasma sheet electrons are captured on closed drift paths near the Earth. These bands do not appear unless there is capture of plasma sheet electrons; convection along open drift paths making open pass around the Earth do not have time to develop this feature. The separation of high-energy bands from the injection population due to the preferential advection of the gradient-curvature drift creates spikes in the energy distribution, which overlap to form a series of bands in the energy spectrograms. The lowest band is the bulk of the injected population in the sub-key energy range. Using the Kp history for an observed banded structure event, a cloud of plasma sheet electrons is captured and the development of their distribution function is examined and discussed.