Active Precipitation of Radiation Belt Electrons using Rocket Exhaust Driven Amplification (REDA) of Man-Made Whistlers

Abstract

The natural and artificial production of high-intensity whistler waves in space is of interest because of their interaction with radiation belt particles. Lightning bursts excite large amplitude pulses of electromagnetic radiation that couple through the bottom of the ionosphere, are ducted along magnetic field lines, and interact with the Earth's radiation belts to produce lightning-induced electron precipitation (LEP). In this interaction process, amplified whistler, triggered emissions, and enhancements in the electron density of the lower ionosphere have been observed (Voss et al., 1984). LEP is also produced by nonducted (magnetospherically reflected) whistlers (Bortnik et al., 2006a(Bortnik et al., , 2006bLauben et al., 2001). Other natural whistler mode emissions include chorus, plasmaspheric hiss, and magnetosonic waves. Chorus waves are strong, natural very low frequency (VLF) emissions