FG: Quantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modeling

Focus Group Leaders:

• Jay Albert
• Wen Li
• Steve Morley
• Weichao Tu

Focus Group Proposal

Quantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modeling (December 2013)

2015 GEM 'RB dropout' and 'RB buildup' Challenges

The event candidates for the 'RB dropout' and 'RB buildup' Challenges are posted at: http://gem.epss.ucla.edu/mediawikiwiki/images/1/13/GEMfocusgroupevents.pdf

Please send your feedback to Weichao Tu (tuweichao@gmail.com).

2014 Mini-GEM Session

Time: 02:20-04:10 PM, Sunday, December 14, 2014

Location: Franciscan II Room, Westin San Francisco Market Street

Schedule:

Part 1 (2:20 – 3:40pm): 14 contributed talks (5 min each):

• 1. Lauren Blum -- Rapid MeV electron precipitation and storm-time radiation belt dynamics

• 2. Drew Turner -- Understanding energetic electron injections at L <= 4 using multipoint observations

• 3. Joachim Birn -- Ion and electron source populations

• 4. Ganjushkina, Natalia -- Modeling of low energy electrons in the inner magnetosphere

• 5. Adam Kellerman -- Quantitative analysis of magnetic field models by comparing with THEMIS, GOES, RBSP field data

• 6. Xin Tao -- An efficient and positivity-preserving method for modeling radiation belt diffusion processes

• 7. Anthony Chan -- Results from modeling drift-shell splitting effects in a fully-3D diffusion code

• 8. Scot Elkington -- K2: Global simulations of the October 2, 2013 RBSP storm

• 9. Wen Li -- Characteristics of plasmaspheric hiss wave spectrum and their effects on energetic electron dynamics

• 10. Danny Summers -- Observation of plasmaspheric hiss emissions

• 11. Yoshi Omura -- Nonlinear wave growth theory for discrete hiss emissions in the plasmasphere

• 12. O.V. Agapitov -- Non-linear electric field spikes in the outer radiation belt and their role in particle dynamics

• 13. J.F. Drake -- Development of a bursty precipitation front with intense localized parallel electric fields driven by oblique whistler waves in the Earth’s outer radiation belts

• 14. Justin H. Lee -- Application of ion composition methods to investigate observations, modeling, and effects of EMIC waves

Part 2 (3:40 – 4:10pm): Planning for the “RB dropout” and “RB buildup” Challenges

2014 GEM Session Schedule

The 2014 session schedule for the “Quantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modeling” FG is posted at: http://gem.epss.ucla.edu/mediawikiwiki/images/1/1b/2014_session_schedule_posted.pdf

We will have time at the end of each session for open discussions. Please join us for the interesting talks and exciting discussions!

2014 GEM Announcement

At this year's GEM Summer Workshop we will start a new Focus Group on "Quantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modeling". The goals of our FG are to bring together the current state-of-art models for the acceleration, transport, and loss processes in radiation belts, develop event-specific and global wave, plasma, and magnetic field models to drive these radiation belt models, and combine all these components to achieve a quantitative assessment of radiation belt modeling by validating against contemporary radiation belt measurements.

Five sessions have been planned for the upcoming GEM workshop:

• Session 1 (Tue, 10:30-12:15 PM): "Joint Session with Radiation Belts & Wave Modeling focus group".

In this joint session, the RBWM FG (finishing this year) will wrap up their accomplishments in the past 5 years and then set up the stage for our introduction of the new FG of Quantitative Assessment of Radiation Belt Modeling. We will discuss the remaining open questions in RB modeling and connect them to our FG goals and challenges.

• Session 2 (Tue, 01:30-03:00 PM): "Review existing RB models and discuss where we are and what are needed".

In this session, we solicit short presentations discussing the existing models for the acceleration, transport, and loss of radiation belt particles. In general, we welcome talks that not only showcase their results, but also include discussions like: "Mechanism ____ is evidently necessary, though not sufficient since ___." We will discuss questions such as: what are "standard" RB codes not doing well enough? vs. What are we not doing at all but probably should be?

• Session 3 (Tue, 03:30-05:00 PM): "Various magnetospheric wave characteristics and their global distribution required in RB modeling".

In this session, we solicit short presentations focusing on characterizing various wave properties that are required as inputs to RB models. The topics will cover ULF waves, chorus and hiss, EMIC waves, magnetosonic waves, etc., and their effects on RB particles. We will review the available wave models and discuss what are still missing for RB modeling.

• Session 4 (Wed, 10:30-12:15 PM): "Seed populations, plasma density, and magnetic field configuration required in RB modeling".

In this session, we solicit short presentations specifying other required inputs for driving RB simulations, which include particle seed populations, plasma density, magnetic field configuration, last closed drift shell, etc. Again, we will review what are currently available and discuss what are still missing.

• Session 5 (Wed, 01:30-03:00 PM): "Wrap-up discussion and plan for future FG activities".

In this final session, we will wrap up this year’s FG with more big-picture discussions, and plan for future FG activities for mini-GEM and next year. One important future activity is the 'RB dropout' and 'RB buildup' Challenges. Here we solicit short presentations proposing interesting dropout/buildup events for our future challenges.

If you would like to present in any of these sessions, please send your talk title and the relevant session number to Weichao Tu (wtu@lanl.gov) by June 6, 2014. We will review the talks and announce the detailed session agenda before the meeting. Participation in discussions and brief walk-in talks are always welcomed.

Thank you in advance for your contributions!

Weichao Tu, Jay Albert, Wen Li, and Steve Morley