Observations of the Remnants of the Ultrarelativistic Electrons Injected by the Strong SSC of 24 March 1991

Abstract

Data from the SAMPEX spacecraft has shown the presence near L = 1.9 of the remnants of the ultrarelativistic electrons (above 15 MeV) injected into the magnetosphere on 24 March 1991. The decay of the electrons has been tracked since July 1992. The electron e-folding lifetime is in the range of six to twelve months, and the location in L of the peak intensity moved inward by ∼0.05 units in one year. The inferred electron lifetime is similar to that of ∼0.5 MeV electrons, which is in agreement with extrapolation to higher energies of the theoretical estimates of Lyons and Thorne (1972).

Additional Information

Copyright 1994 by the American Geophysical Union. (Received: February 25, 1994; revised: May 19, 1994; accepted: June 8, 1994.) This work was supported by NASA at The Aerospace Corporation under NASA Cooperative Agreement 26979B and at the California Institute of Technology under contract NAS5-30704 and grant NAGW-1919. One of us (MDL) was supported by an NRC Research Associateship. The authors would like to acknowledge several discussions with Larry Lyons and Mike Schulz on the lifetimes of radiation-belt energetic electrons, and with Richard Selesnick on the calibration of PET.

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