Speaker
Description
Understanding the dynamics of energetic electron populations in the Earth's outer radiation belt presents unique opportunities to grapple with the fundamental physics of relativistic charged particle trapping, loss, and acceleration in our own 'back-yard'.
On the one hand our understanding of radiation belt dynamics has evolved a great deal in the 60+ years since their discovery. However (and perhaps as ever?), there are many aspects whose basic description and importance in this domain are yet to be fully understood, incorporated, or effectively parameterized and incorporated into global scientific and operational models.
We present a survey of fundamental theory and modelling approaches, focusing on best current understanding of wave-particle interactions and some key milestones in the 21st century. We will focus on some current cutting-edge developments pertaining to wave-particle interactions, and outline exciting future directions.
These will likely include developments towards understanding and incorporation of: quasilinear and nonlinear interactions; stochastic parameterization; fast and MLT dependent radial transport; the existence (or otherwise) of an upper limit to flux; and new modelling paradigms such as stochastic pdes “on top” of fluid-based approaches.
