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Sheldon 1994
Sheldon, R.B. (1994). Ion transport and loss in the Earth's quiet ring current: 2. Diffusion and magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: doi: 10.1029/93JA02769. issn: 0148-0227.

We have studied the transport and loss of H+, He+, and He++ ions in the Earth's quiet time ring current (1--300 keV/e, 3--7RE, Kp<2+, ‖Dst‖<11, 70¿--110¿ pitchangles, all LT) comparing the standard radial diffusion model developed for the higher-energy radiation belt particles with measurements of the lower energy ring current ions in a previous paper (Sheldon and Hamilton, 1993). Large deviations of that model, which fit only 50% of the data to within a factor of 10, suggested that another transport mechanism is operating in the ring current. Here we derive a modified diffusion coefficient corrected for electric field effects on ring current energy ions that fit nearly 80% of the data to within a factor of 2. Thus we infer that electric field fluctuations from the low-latitude to midlatitude ionosphere (ionospheric dynamo) dominate the ring current transport, rather than high-latitude or solar wind fluctuations. Much of the remaining deviation may arise from convective electric field transport of the E<30 keV particles. Since convection effects cannot be correctly treated with this azimuthally symmetric model, we defer treatment of the lowest-energy ions to another paper. We give &khgr;2 contours for the best fit, showing the dependence of the fit upon the internal/external spectral power of the predicted electric and magnetic field fluctuations. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1994

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Abstract

Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Energetic particles, trapped, Magnetospheric Physics, Current systems, Space Plasma Physics, Charged particle motion and acceleration, Space Plasma Physics, Transport processes
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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