TY  - JOUR
A1  - Castillo, Angelica M.
A1  - Shprits, Yuri Y.
A1  - Ganushkina, Natalia
A1  - Drozdov, Alexander
A1  - Aseev, Nikita
A1  - Wang, Dedong
A1  - Dubyagin, Stepan
T1  - Simulations of the inner magnetospheric energetic electrons using the IMPTAM-VERB coupled model
JF  - Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
N2  - In this study, we present initial results of the coupling between the Inner Magnetospheric Particle Transport and Acceleration Model (IMPTAM) and the Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB-3D) code. IMPTAM traces electrons of 10-100 keV energies from the plasma sheet (L = 9 Re) to inner L-shell regions. The flux evolution modeled by IMPTAM is used at the low energy and outer L* computational boundaries of the VERB code (assuming a dipole approximation) to perform radiation belt simulations of energetic electrons. The model was tested on the March 17th, 2013 storm, for a six-day period. Four different simulations were performed and their results compared to satellites observations from Van Allen probes and GOES. The coupled IMPTAM-VERB model reproduces evolution and storm-time features of electron fluxes throughout the studied storm in agreement with the satellite data (within similar to 0.5 orders of magnitude). Including dynamics of the low energy population at L* = 6.6 increases fluxes closer to the heart of the belt and has a strong impact in the VERB simulations at all energies. However, inclusion of magnetopause losses leads to drastic flux decreases even below L* = 3. The dynamics of low energy electrons (max. 10s of keV) do not affect electron fluxes at energies >= 900 keV. Since the IMPTAM-VERB coupled model is only driven by solar wind parameters and the Dst and Kp indexes, it is suitable as a forecasting tool. In this study, we demonstrate that the estimation of electron dynamics with satellite-data-independent models is possible and very accurate.
KW  - Electron populations
KW  - Radiation belts
KW  - IMPTAM
KW  - VERB
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2019.05.014
SN  - 1364-6826
SN  - 1879-1824
VL  - 191
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Oxford
ER  -