Fluxes of geomagnetically trapped energetic oxygen ions have been studied in detail. Ion distributions in radial locations below the geostationary orbit, energy spectra between 1 keV and 100 MeV, and the distribution over charge states have been computed for equatorially mirroring ions. Both ionospheric and solar wind oxygen ions sources have been considered, and it is found that the charge state distributions in the interior of the radiation belts are largely independent of the charge state characteristics of the sources. In the MeV range, oxygen ions prove to be a more sensitive probe for radiation belt dynamics than helium ion and protons. |