The Relationship Between Proton Aurora and Trapped Ion Flux as Seen by IMAGE

The FUV/SI12 instrument on board the IMAGE satellite provides global observations of proton produced aurora. The MENA and HENA instruments on IMAGE provide global energetic neutral atom images that can be inverted to obtain equatorial flux distributions of trapped ring current protons. Mapping the equatorial distributions of trapped protons along magnetic field lines to the polar cap where the proton auroras are observed allows direct comparison of the location of the two populations. Such comparisons for 10:00-13:45 UT on August 12, 2000, 00:00-5:45 UT on June 2, 2001, and 13:00-16:45 on June 18, 2001 show a strong correlation between the location of the 8.5 keV trapped proton flux observed by MENA and the precipitating protons observed by FUV/SI12 but an anti-correlation between the 33 keV trapped protons observed by HENA and the FUV/SI12 observations. Possible explanations of these observations will also be presented.