Unusual stable trapping of the ultrarelativistic electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts

• Published in: Nature physics 2013-11, Vol.9 (11), p.699-703
• Main Authors: Shprits, Yuri Y., Subbotin, Dmitriy, Drozdov, Alexander, Usanova, Maria E., Kellerman, Adam, Orlova, Ksenia, Baker, Daniel N., Turner, Drew L., Kim, Kyung-Chan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/766/33/525/869; Atmosphere; Atomic; Belts; Classical and Continuum Physics; Complex Systems; Condensed Matter Physics; Earth; Electrons; Geomagnetic field; letter; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Molecular; Optical and Plasma Physics; Particle physics; Physics; Plasma; Radiation; Theoretical; Waves
• ISSN: 1745-2473; 1745-2481
• DOI: 10.1038/nphys2760

The Van Allen radiation belts are two rings of charged particles encircling the Earth. Therefore the transient appearance in 2012 of a third ring between the inner and outer belts was a surprise. A study of the ultrarelativistic electrons in this middle ring reveals new physics for particles above 2 MeV. Radiation in space was the first discovery of the space age. Earth’s radiation belts consist of energetic particles that are trapped by the geomagnetic field and encircle the planet 1 . The electron radiation belts usually form a two-zone structure with a stable inner zone and a highly variable outer zone, which forms and disappears owing to wave–particle interactions on the timescale of a day, and is strongly influenced by the very-low-frequency plasma waves. Recent observations revealed a third radiation zone at ultrarelativistic energies 2 , with the additional medium narrow belt (long-lived ring) persisting for approximately 4 weeks. This new ring resulted from a combination of electron losses to the interplanetary medium and scattering by electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves to the Earth’s atmosphere. Here we show that ultrarelativistic electrons can stay trapped in the outer zone and remain unaffected by the very-low-frequency plasma waves for a very long time owing to a lack of scattering into the atmosphere. The absence of scattering is explained as a result of ultrarelativistic particles being too energetic to resonantly interact with waves at low latitudes. This study shows that a different set of physical processes determines the evolution of ultrarelativistic electrons.