Speaker
Alexei Kouznetsov
(University of Calgary)
Description
Energetic electron precipitations cause atmospheric ionization - a complicated process which depends on many parameters. We present our energetic particles precipitation model which consists of three main parts: Energetic electron sources; Coupled electron/photon transport in the earth atmosphere; RIOMETERs and Very Low Frequency (VLF) receivers response to energetic electron precipitations. The primary source of energetic electrons - Van-Allen radiation belts - occupy a vast region of space and accumulate an immense amount of energy. In the Northern hemisphere they map to a broad ring crossing Canada. Under certain conditions trapped electrons can penetrate even deeper into the atmosphere causing modulations of free electron densities of D-Layer. The model implements coupled electron/photon transport based on MCNP 6 general transport code. Model verification uses data from the Medium Energy Proton and Electron Detector instrument on NOAA's POES satellite. Calculated electron fluxes and estimated electron density altitudinal profiles are used to construct and validate a realistic transport model that maps energetic electron fluxes incident on the upper atmosphere to GO CANADA (RIOMETERs and VLF receivers) instrument responses.
Author
Alexei Kouznetsov
(University of Calgary)
Co-author
Dr
Christopher Cully
(University of Calgary)