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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Space Physics
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1470742

Estimating quasi-linear diffusion coefficients for varying values of density ratio

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Air Force Research Lab, Kirtland AFB, NM, United States
  • 2 New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, United States
  • 3 Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    We consider a method for estimating bounce-averaged quasi-linear diffusion coefficients due to whistler-mode waves for a specified ratio of plasma frequency to gyrofrequency, ω p /Ω e , using values precomputed for a different value of that ratio. This approach was recently introduced to facilitate calculations associated with the "POES technique," generalized to infer both wave intensity and cold plasma density from measurements of particle fluxes near the loss cone.The original derivation was justified on the basis of parallel-propagating waves, but applied to calculations with much more general models of the waves. Here, we justify the estimates, which are based on equating resonant frequencies for differing values of ω p /Ω e and energy, for wide ranges of wave normal angle, resonance number, energy, and equatorial pitch angle.Refinements of the original estimates are obtained and tested numerically against full calculations of the diffusion coefficients for representative wave models. The estimated diffusion coefficients are fast to calculate and generally give useful estimates for energies in the 30 keV to 300 keV range, especially when both relevant values of the ratio ω p /Ω e are large.

    Keywords: Wave-particle interactions, Radiation Belts, Quasi-linear, Diffusion, POES technique

    Received: 26 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Albert, Longley and Chan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jay M. Albert, Air Force Research Lab, Kirtland AFB, NM, United States

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