Earth-Based Transmitters Trigger Precipitation of Inner Radiation Belt Electrons: Unveiling Observations and Modeling Results

Abstract

Human activity influence Earth's environment, including the space environment hundreds to thousands of kilometers above the Earth. One direct evidence is that the 19.8 kHz electromagnetic signals launched by the North West Cape (NWC) transmitter station in Australia produce a wisp-like energy distribution of precipitating energetic electrons in Earth's inner radiation belt, observed by many Low Earth Orbiting satellites. Typically, satellites observe a single wisp with energy that decreases with increasing L (approximately the radial distance in the equatorial plane), which is produced by a first-order cyclotron resonance of transmitter signals with energetic electrons. Here we report, for the first time, multiple wisps observed by the Relativistic Electron and Proton Telescope integrated little experiment-2 (REPTile-2) on board the recently launched Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE) CubeSat. Based on simulation results, we demonstrate that harmonic cyclotron resonances including the 1, −1, and 2 orders by highly oblique NWC transmitter signals produce these multiple wisps. The discovery of multiple-order cyclotron resonances simultaneously occurring in space sheds new light on wave-particle interactions in near-Earth space. It also has implications for developing artificial radiation belt remediation techniques and understanding the propagation and scattering of plasma waves in planetary magnetospheres.