INT. J. NEW. INN.

, 2012, 1(1), 31-35

ISSN:2277-4459

PITCH ANGLE DIFFUSION OF ENERGETIC ELECTRONS BY ELF WHISTLER MODE WAVE AT HIGH LATITUDES
Mukesh Kumar Chandel1
1

Department of Physics, B.M. College of Technology & Management, Farrukhnagar, Gurgaon, Haryana-122506, India

ABSTRACT
Wave particle interaction between elf waves and cyclotron resonant electrons has been studied & pitch angle diffusion is calculated at different pitch angles. We consider L-values of high latitudes (4.0, 4.5, and 5.0). The diffusive equilibrium ionospheric model has been considered and theory of Summer et al (2007) has been extended. We find that high pitch angles are more efficient to precipitate resonant electrons into the lower ionosphere. In the same way the high frequency waves are more able to diffuse cyclotron resonant electron into the loss cone. The results are in agreement with experimental values.

KEYWORDS: Magnetospheric plasma waves, Electron precipitation, Wave-particle interactions, Pitch angle scattering, Cyclotron resonance, Earths radiation belt, Energetic electron,

1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of the present work [Summers et al., 2007] is to apply quasi-linear diffusion theory to quantify cyclotron resonant interactions of radiation belt electrons with whistler-mode chorus, plasma spheric hiss, and EMIC waves. We use quasi-linear theory to investigate the average properties of the cyclotron resonant diffusion process. Nonlinear effects including phenomena such as phase trapping are therefore not included and are beyond the scope of our investigation .Many workers of Summers et al.[2005,2007] derived readily computable formulae for the quasi-linear diffusion coefficients for cyclotron resonance with field aligned (R- mode or Lmode) electromagnetic waves. In order to determine the rates of the rates of momentum diffusion and pitch angle diffusion appropriate to the Earths assumed dipole magnetic field, we compute energy diffusion coefficient energetic electrons interacting with coherent/incoherent whistler mode ELF waves and find that coherence is important in wave particle interaction than incoherence to diffuse energetic electrons into the loss cone which amplify ELF waves at low latitude, along with D-E region perturbation, X-rays and aurorae. Energy diffusion of trapped energetic particles is one of the important consequences of wave-particle interaction phenomena occurring in the terrestrial magnetosphere. This results in the precipitation into the denser lower atmosphere. The Whistler mode waves play 31

an important role in the loss of trapped energetic particles. Of dragging them into the loss cone and thus limiting the trapped particles flux levels, propagate at frequencies between proton and electron gyro frequencies, and exhibit spectral power near the natural gyration frequency in the frame of the electrons adiabatic motion. Thus these waves perturb the adiabatic invariant motion of the particles, and wave-induced pitch angle as well as energy changes can result in the lowering of the mirror altitude of the particles, and the precipitation of electrons into the ionosphere. ELF wave are also whistler mode wave but unlike VLF frequencies, their range is 300-3000 Hz. The present investigation extends the work of summers. (2007a, b) by examining the effects of latitudinal distributions of particle density and wave power on the resonant diffusion rates of radiation belt electrons for the aforementioned wave modes. In Section 2 we provide a short account of the quasi-linear theory required to calculate resonant diffusion rates. In Section 3 we present our calculations of the (bounce-averaged) electron diffusion rates for individual wave modes, and we also determine the effects of the latitudinal distributions of density and wave power on electron precipitation loss timescales due to combined scattering by VLF chorus, ELF hiss and EMIC waves. Finally, in Section 4 we summarize our results.

International Journal of New Innovations