Using Ray Tracing to Model the Plasmaspheric Wave Field for Active Experiments in Space

Abstract

Whistler mode waves in the Earth's inner magnetosphere playa key role in local energy transfer between particle populations and in larger scale processes such as scattering of trapped energetic electrons into the atmospheric loss cone. A body of recent research has focused on active experiments which generate whistler waves (e.g. via an antenna or accelerating an unstable electron beam) with the intent of influencing these processes. Accurately modeling how whistlers evolve on a global scale is an important step toward evaluating the impacts of these experimental efforts.