Precipitation of radiation belt electrons by lightning-generated magnetospherically reflecting whistler waves

This dissertation presents a study of several aspects of the resonant interaction between energetic radiation-belt electrons and lightning generated, magnetospherically-reflecting (MR) whistler mode waves in the inner magnetosphere.; We initially develop a first-order model to estimate the L-shell dependence of the precipitation flux of energetic electrons driven by MR whistlers injected at 25°, 35°, and 45° geomagnetic latitude, assuming first a horizontally stratified ionosphere and then an ionosphere containing realistic horizontal density gradients. Results indicate an L-shell dependent pattern of precipitation which agrees remarkably well with observations made aboard the SAMPEX satellite.; We then perform a detailed calculation of the frequency-time ( f-t) characteristics and power of an MR whistler generated by a single cloud-ground discharge at a given latitude, as it would appear on a satellite at any point in the magnetosphere. By developing an extensive ray tracing and interpolation technique, we simulate a whistler observed aboard the OGO 1 satellite to find excellent agreement between theory and measurement. By varying the lightning injection latitude, magnetospheric observation location, and cold-plasma distribution, we obtain f-t signatures the clearly reflect the underlying source, medium, and observation properties.; Using the above formulation, we compute the f-t spectra of an MR whistler at 1° latitude bins along a given field line, and use a novel technique to calculate the precipitated flux of energetic electrons as a function of time, at every latitude bin on the field-line, including gyro-harmonic resonance interactions of order +5 to -5 as well as the zero order or Landau resonance. We use a realistic AE8 flux distribution for the trapped flux composing the radiation belts, with a sinusoidal pitch-angle distribution. Results indicate that MR whistler-induced precipitation episodes can last for tens of seconds and move to higher L-shells (and hence latitudes) on both short (0.1 sec) and long (10 sec) timescales, covering a geographic region measuring hundreds of kilometers.; We conclude that lightning-generated MR whistlers produce unique temporal, spatial, and L-dependent signatures of precipitating, energetic, radiation belt electrons, which can be detected using either satellite-borne instruments or ground-based techniques.