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A Comparison of Radial Diffusion Coefficients in 1-D and 3-D Long-Term Radiation Belt Simulations
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  • Alexander Yurievich Drozdov,
  • Hayley J Allison,
  • Yuri Y Shprits,
  • Scot R. Elkington,
  • Nikita A Aseev
Alexander Yurievich Drozdov
University of California Los Angeles

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Hayley J Allison
GFZ
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Yuri Y Shprits
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam
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Scot R. Elkington
University of Colorado Boulder
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Nikita A Aseev
GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
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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.
Aug 2021Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics volume 126 issue 8. 10.1029/2020JA028707