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Albert 2005
Albert, J.M. (2005). Evaluation of quasi-linear diffusion coefficients for whistler mode waves in a plasma with arbitrary density ratio. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: doi: 10.1029/2004JA010844. issn: 0148-0227.

Techniques are presented for efficiently evaluating quasi-linear diffusion coefficients for whistler mode waves propagating according to the full cold plasma index of refraction. In particular, the density ratio ωpe/Ωe can be small, which favors energy diffusion. This generalizes an approach, previously used for high-density hiss and electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves, of identifying (and omitting) ranges of wavenormal angle $theta$ that are incompatible with cyclotron resonant frequencies ω occurring between sharp cutoffs of the modeled wave frequency spectrum. This requires a detailed analysis of the maximum and minimum values of the refractive index as a function of ω and $theta$, as has previously been performed in the high-density approximation. Sample calculations show the effect of low-density ratio on the pitch angle and energy diffusion coefficients modeling the effect of chorus waves on radiation belt electrons. The high-density approximation turns out to be quite robust, especially when the upper frequency cutoff is small compared with Ωe. The techniques greatly reduce the amount of computation needed for a sample calculation, while taking into account all resonant harmonic numbers n up to ¿∞.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Radiation belts, Magnetospheric Physics, Energetic particles, trapped, Magnetospheric Physics, Magnetosphere, inner, Space Plasma Physics, Wave/particle interactions (2483, 6984), Radio Science, Magnetospheric physics, wave-particle interactions, quasi-linear theory, chorus waves, diffusion coefficients
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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