A Comparison of Radial Diffusion Coefficients in 1-D and 3-D Long-Term
Radiation Belt Simulations
Abstract
Radial diffusion is one of the dominant physical mechanisms driving
acceleration and loss of radiation belt electrons. A number of
parameterizations for radial diffusion coefficients have been developed,
each differing in the dataset used. Here, we investigate the performance
of different parameterizations by Brautigam and Albert (2000), Brautigam
et al (2005), Ozeke et al. (2014), Ali et al. (2015, 2016); Ali (2016),
and Liu et al. (2016) on long-term radiation belt modeling using the
Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB) code, and compare the results
to Van Allen Probes observations. First, 1-D radial diffusion
simulations are performed, isolating the contribution of solely radial
diffusion. We then take into account effects of local acceleration and
loss showing additional 3-D simulations, including diffusion across
pitch-angle and energy, as well as mixed diffusion. For the L* range
studied, the difference between simulations with Brautigam and Albert
(2000), Ozeke et al. (2014), and Liu et al. (2016) parameterizations is
shown to be small, with Brautigam and Albert (2000) offering the best
agreement with observations. Using Ali et al. (2016)’s parameterization
tended to result in a lower flux at 1 MeV than both the observations and
the VERB simulations using the other coefficients. We find that the 3-D
simulations are less sensitive to the radial diffusion coefficient
chosen than the 1-D simulations, suggesting that for 3-D radiation belt
models, a similar result is likely to be achieved, regardless of whether
Brautigam and Albert (2000), Ozeke et al. (2014), and Liu et al. (2016)
parameterizations are used.