Radiation Belts St. Petersburg (RBSPb) Meeting: List of Interesting Storms and Events Drew L. Turner and Mike Hartinger Mini-GEM: Dec. 2010

RBSPb researchers (incl. students), representing institutions from USA, Russia, Japan, and EU, met in St. Petersburg, Russia in late July Workshop website: Workshop format, open-discussion talks covering: – ULF waves – Whistler-mode chorus – EMIC waves – Effects of the plasmasphere – Observational studies – Data assimilation – Instrumentation and upcoming missions Tutorial talk by Mike Schulz on the limiting energy spectrum of a saturated radiation belt At the end of the workshop, there was a brainstorming session on collaborative projects…

Events List Radiation belt events with interesting, clear, and/or intriguing characteristics, e.g.: – Storm-time dynamics – Non-storm enhancements – Sudden dropout/loss events A database of these events could (or “should”?) be generated Database should include details for each event: – General information and data (i.e. fluxes, solar wind, etc.), – What has been studied previously, include any publications and their conclusions – What is being studied currently – Recommendations for future study This should prove to be a useful reference tool for radiation belt researchers

Examples: Bz V P dyn Kp Dst AE OMNI June 1995: – 1 of 2 non/weak-storm enhancement event – Exhibits a very sudden enhancement of radiation belt electrons – No publications on these Thanks to CDAWeb and LANL for online data access; also GPS data courtesy of R. Friedel, T. Cayton, and S. Bourdarie

Bz V P dyn Kp Dst AE OMNI Examples: Thanks to CDAWeb and LANL for online data access; also GPS data courtesy of R. Friedel, T. Cayton, and S. Bourdarie December 2000: – 2 nd non/weak-storm enhancement event – Unlike 1 st event, this one exhibits a slower build up of energetic electrons

February 2009: – Small storm with typical main-phase dropout and strong enhancement – Modeling analysis published in JGR [Tu et al., 2010] Examples: – Data also available from 1 st BARREL balloon test flight – All this information (i.e. data, plots, references, and conclusions) for each event could be stored in one place!

Event Database - Goals Select several events that should be studied, are currently being studied, or have already been studied to improve our understanding of radiation belt dynamics Incorporate these events into a database that is accessible to the radiation belt research community Facilitate collaboration on these events through the database Goal today: feedback on potential events and the database; if favorable, structure and location of the database

Proposed Implementation of Database Event List Single Event Topics list Ongoing Research Lead(s) Links to data/figures Summary Previous Publications/short summary Overview Plots (e.g. Kp) Discussion Board

Discussion: “We think that a large dynamic pressure pulse caused a sudden, dramatic dropout in PSD during this interval” Topics: Radial Diffusion, Sudden PSD dropouts, Chorus waves Publications: None Current Research: Yuri Shprits, reanalysis results Select June 1991 event Select Sudden PSD dropout topic

June 1991: – Example of sudden, catastrophic dropout in phase space density – Reanalysis results show that drop outs in the radiation belt fluxes occur when the pressure pulse hits the Earth’s magnetosphere – The correlation between pressure pulses and dropouts suggests that the primary cause of PSD dropouts in the outer portion of the radiation belts is loss to the magnetopause or tail, followed by outward radial diffusion Example:

Events