Search for Electron Bursts in the Inner Van Allen Belts with the CSES and NOAA POES Satellites

Abstract

Earthquake monitoring plays a key role in human life protection, especially in highly populated areas of the Earth. First indications have been found in SAMPEX and NOAA satellite data that particle fluxes of trapped electrons in the Van Allen belts can be correlated to seismic activity on the ground. Within the framework of the CSES mission, a systematic analysis of the electron flux, within the invariant phase space in the L-shell and equatorial pitch angle, has started with the goal to identify short-term variations of the flux (particle bursts) in conjunction with seismic activity. This analysis is based on the statistical evaluation of the flux measurements and built to be potentially implemented in an online monitoring system. The first milestone in that direction has been achieved, providing a stable background estimation. With the injection of artificial signals, the efficiency of the method was evaluated and found to be better than 95% for isolated (one per day) and short (∼3 min) signals with a significance ≥ 5σ above the background. The developed method is set up in a manner to be easily applicable to data from different instruments and satellites. This article presents the studied datasets of the low-energy HEPP instrument onboard the CSES-01 satellite and the electron telescopes of the MEPED detector onboard the NOAA POES-19 satellite, introduces the method for the background estimation, and discusses the first correlation studies of particle bursts with geomagnetic indices obtained within this framework.