Analytic approach to auroral electron transport and energy degradation

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Abstract

The interaction of a beam of auroral electrons with the atmosphere is described by the linear transport equation, encompassing discrete energy loss, multiple scattering and secondary electrons. A solution to the transport equation provides the electron intensity as a function of altitude, pitch angle (with respect to the geomagnetic field) and energy. A multi-stream (discrete ordinate) approximation to the transport equation is developed. An analytic solution is obtained in this approximation. The computational scheme obtained by combining the present transport code with the energy degradation method of Swartz (1979) conserves energy identically. The theory provides a framework within which angular distributions can be easily calculated and interpreted. Thus, a detailed study of the angular distributions of "non-absorbed" electrons (i.e., electrons that have lost just a small fraction of their incident energy) reveals a systematic variation with incident angle and energy, and with penetration depth. The present approach also gives simple yet accurate solutions in low order multi-stream approximations. The accuracy of the four-stream approximation is generally within a few per cent, whereas two-stream results for backscattered mean intensities and fluxes are accurate to within 10-15%.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)427-441
Number of pages15
JournalPlanetary and Space Science
Volume28
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1980

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