Modeling of the Photoelectron Space-Energy Distribution Based on a
Contemporary Coupled Photon-Electron Transport Approach
Abstract
Photoelectrons produced by solar EUV uxes are a major contributor to
ionospheric heating at high altitudes. Modeling of photoelectron heating
relies strongly on their space-energy distribution, which in turn
depends on the accuracy of the description of EUV sources and complex
photon-electron transport. The source of EUV uxes is solar radiation
emitted from the whole solar disk and corrected for atmospheric
absorption. Measured EUV uxes consist of numerous integrated bands and
the emission line intensities, which have high (~50%)
variability, even for similar levels of solar activity (Heroux, 1972).
We analyze the sensitivity of photoelectron production to the EUV
sources by comparing results calculated based on a direct EUV ux
measurement in the wavelength region 1220-52 Å from(Heroux, 1972), and
the EUVAC model developed by Phil Richards (Richards et al., 1994). Our
preliminary results show that the accuracy of the EUVAC model in the
calculation of the photoelectron space-energy distribution is comparable
to that based on direct EUV ux measurements. Photoelectron production
caused by EUV ux involves a complex physical process of primary
(photons) and secondary (electrons) interactions. It relies on
cross-section libraries and tabulated distribution functions for
secondary particle production and energy losses, implemented in the
MCNP6 general-purpose Monte Carlo solution, and utilized in our coupled
photon-electron transport calculations. The solution takes into account
all fundamental photoand electro-atomic transport processes, including
sub-shell electro-ionization that affects the atomic relaxation process
for energies down to one eV. The most signicant improvement is made by
including all atomic electron subshells that affect the atomic
relaxation process for these energies. Data structures include subshell
binding energies, ground-state electron populations, and the number of
possible relaxation transitions. Photon transport enhancements are based
on a new dataset specic to atomic subshells and incorporated into
MCNP6, and completion of form factor data for coherent and incoherent
scattering. These results will be applied to ionospheric electron
temperature measurements from Langmuir probes on board the European
Space Agency’s Swarm satellite mission.