Comparison of Ring Current and Radiation Belt Responses during Transient Solar Wind Structures

The analysis of radiation belt dynamics provides insight into the physical mechanisms of trapping, energization, and loss of energetic particles in the magnetosphere. It is well known that the storm-time ring current response to solar wind drivers changes the magnetic field in the inner magnetosphere, which modifies radiation belt particle trajectories as well as the magnetopause and geomagnetic cutoff locations. What is not well known is the detailed space-time structure of solar wind transient features that drive the dynamics of the ring-current and radiation belt response. We compare observed responses of the ring current and radiation belts during two geomagnetic storms of similar intensity on 15 November 2012 and 29 June 2013. Using the self-consistent ring current model RCM-Equilibrium (RCM-E), which ensures a force-balanced ring-current response at each time step, we generate a simulated ring current in response to the changing conditions as the storm evolves on a timescale of hours. Observations of the plasma sheet particles, fields, and solar wind parameters are used to specify the dynamic boundary conditions as the storm evolves. This allows more realistic magnetospheric field and plasma dynamics during solar wind transients than can be obtained from existing empirical models. Using a spatial mapping algorithm developed by Mulligan et al., (2012) we create two-dimensional contour maps of the solar wind bulk plasma parameters using ACE, Wind, Geotail, and THEMIS data to quantitatively follow upstream spatial variations in the radial and azimuthal dimensions driving the storm. We perform a comparison of how the structure and impact angle of the solar wind transients affect the intensity and duration of energization of the ring current and radiation belt at various energies. We also investigate how the varying geomagnetic conditions determined by the solar wind affect dominant loss mechanisms such as magnetopause shadowing. Comparison of energetic particle adiabatic and non-adiabatic responses, their radial gradients, and locations during the two storms using observations from the Van Allen probes and GOES will help uncover how subtle variations in the different solar wind drivers during the storms affect the location of the magnetopause boundary and affect geomagnetic cutoff regions.