2015 CAP Congress / Congrès de l'ACP 2015

Small Scale Structuring in Electron Precipitation as seen by the ePOP Suprathermal Electron Imager

16 Jun 2015, 16:45

15m

CAB 243 (University of Alberta)

Oral (Student, In Competition) / Orale (Étudiant(e), inscrit à la compétition) Atmospheric and Space Physics / Physique atmosphérique et de l'espace (DASP-DPAE) T3-3 Ground-based / in situ observations and studies of space environment III (DASP) / Observations et études de l'environnement spatial, sur terre et in situ III (DPAE)

Speaker

Taylor Cameron (University of Calgary)

Description

Auroral arcs are known to be caused by electrons with keV energies interacting with the neutral atmosphere. However, there is much more to the aurora than auroral arcs. There is a wide range of phenomena that are grouped together as "diffuse aurora". Suprathermal electron precipitation (having energies between 1 eV and a keV) often contributes to the diffuse aurora. Much less is known about suprathermal electron precipitation than the higher energy precipitation. The ePOP Suprathermal Electron Imager (SEI),a high-time-resolution CCD-based detector capable of imaging electron velocity distributions, is currently being used to survey this type of precipitation. We will present observations of dispersed electron busts, where a burst of electron precipitation is dispersed over the distance from source to detector. We will also present observations of "inverse" electron dispersion, in which a low energy population of electrons increases in energy over time. This has not been reported in literature before. We present a simple model that could explain this phenomenon, and results from a simple simulation of it.