Abstract
Characterising the location of the outer boundary of the outer radiation
belt is a key aspect of improving radiation belt models and helps to
constrain our understanding of the mechanisms by which the source and
seed electron populations are transported into the radiation belts. In
this paper, we hypothesise that there are statistical differences in the
electron distribution function across the radiation belt outer boundary,
and thus analyse electron flux data from the THEMIS (Time History of
Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) satellites to
identify this location. We validate our hypothesis by using modelled
electron L* values to approximately characterise the differences between
electron distribution functions inside and outside of the radiation
belts. Initially, we perform a simple statistical analysis by studying
the radial evolution of the electron distribution functions. This
approach does not yield a clear discontinuity, thus highlighting the
need for more complex statistical treatment of the data. Subsequently,
we employ machine learning (with no dependence on L*) to test a range of
candidate outer boundary locations. By analysing the performance of the
models at each candidate location, we identify a statistical boundary at
≈8 Earth radii, with results suggesting some variability. This
statistical boundary is typically further out than those used in current
radiation belt models.