Artificial modification of Earth's radiation belts by ground-based very-low-frequency(VLF)transmitters  

作　　者：Binbin NI Man HUA Xudong GU Song FU Zheng XIANG Xing CAO Xin MA 

机构地区：[1]Department of Space Physics,School of Electronic Information,Wuhan University,Wuhan 430072,China [2]Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology,Hefei 230026,China

出　　处：《Science China Earth Sciences》2022年第3期391-413,共23页中国科学（地球科学英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.42025404,42188101,41904144,41704162);the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(Grant Nos.2042021kf1045,2042021kf1056);the B-type Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.XDB41000000);the Pre-research projects on Civil Aerospace Technologies(Grant Nos.D020308,D020104&D020303).

摘　　要：Wave-particle interactions play a fundamental role in the dynamic variability of Earth’s donut-shaped radiation belts that are highly populated by magnetically trapped energetic particles and characteristically separated by the slot devoid of high energetic electrons.Owing to the continuous accumulation of high-quality wave and particle measurements from multiple satellites in geospace,the important contribution of ground-based very-low-frequency(VLF)transmitter waves to the electron dynamics in the near-Earth space has been unprecedently advanced,in addition to those established findings of the significant effects of a variety of naturally occurring magnetospheric waves.This paper focuses on the artificial modification of Earth’s inner radiation belt and slot by artificial VLF transmitter emissions.We review the global distributions of VLF transmitter waves in geospace,their scattering effects on radiation belt electrons in terms of both theoretical and observational analyses,and diffusion simulation results of wave-particle interactions along with data-model comparisons.We start with a brief review of the radiation belt electron dynamics and an introduction of anthropogenic VLF transmitter waves.Subsequently,we review the global morphology of in situ VLF transmitter waves corresponding to different transmitter locations,including their day-night asymmetry,geographic distributions,seasonal and geomagnetic activity dependence,and wave propagation features.Existed theoretical and observational analyses of electron scattering effects by VLF transmitter waves are then reviewed to approach the underlying physics that can modulate the spatio-temporal variations of the electron radiation belts.Further Fokker-Planck electron diffusion simulations and their comparisons with realistic satellite observations clearly indicate that VLF transmitter emissions can effectively remove energetic electrons to produce a radially bifurcated electron belt,thereby quantitatively confirming the direct link between operations of VLF

关 键 词：VLF transmitters Wave-particle interactions Electron precipitation Earth’s radiation belts Flux bifurcation 

分 类 号：TN838[电子电信—信息与通信工程]