Global Maps of Plasmaspheric Erosion and Refilling for Varying Geomagnetic Conditions

Abstract

AbstractThe plasmasphere accounts for the majority of the mass of Earth's magnetosphere and contains most of the cold ion (1 eV) population. The plasmasphere is extremely dynamic, undergoing a constant cycle of erosion and refilling. In this paper we perform a statistical study of erosion and refilling rates using 6 years of data from the Van Allen Probes from the beginning of 2013 through the end of 2018. Using in‐situ density measurements derived from the upper hybrid resonance line, we create global maps of the erosion and refilling rates over a wide range of L shells and local times. Sorting the data by L shell, magnetic local time, and distance to the plasmapause, we characterize the absolute and relative rates of erosion and refilling during a variety of geomagnetic conditions. We also examine three case studies of geomagnetic storms and compare their density evolutions during the recovery period. Our results are in agreement with refilling rates found by previous statistical studies using different methods, but somewhat lower than many of the case studies reported. We find median erosion rates of 164, 83, and 43 cm−3/day and refilling rates of 87, 42, and 27 cm−3/day at L = 3, 4 and 5, respectively when Kp 3. We also find little local time dependence for both erosion and refilling rates.