Quantifying the Effects of Magnetic Field Line Curvature Scattering on Radiation Belt and Ring Current Particles

Abstract

Magnetic field line curvature (FLC) scattering is a collisionless scattering mechanism that arises when a particle's gyro-radius is comparable to the magnetic field line's curvature radius, resulting in the breaking of the conservation of the first adiabatic invariant. Studies in recent years have explored the implications of FLC scattering on the precipitation of both ring current ions and radiation belt electrons. In this work, we first compare two previous FLC scattering coefficients using test particle calculations. Then, we systematically calculate diffusion coefficients from FLC scattering in radial and MLT directions for particles of various energy levels, as well as its sensitivity to the $Kp$ index. We find that the timescale of FLC scattering is sufficient to account for the sudden loss of MeV electrons near the geostationary orbit during disturbed times. Additionally, the decay time of ring current protons is on the order of hours to minutes, providing an explanation for the ring current decay throughout the recovery phase of magnetic storms. Lastly, we compare the effects of wave-particle resonant scattering and FLC scattering in the vicinity of the midnight equator. Our findings suggest that the impacts of FLC scattering on MeV electrons or hundreds keV protons with smaller pitch angle is comparable to, or even more significant than, the effects of whistler mode or EMIC wave resonant scattering. Our quantitative results should be useful to evaluate the importance of the effects of FLC scattering while modeling the dynamics of radiation belt and ring current.