Electron Microburst Energy Dispersion Calculated by Test Particle Simulation

Electron microbursts, energetic electron precipitation having duration less than 1 sec, have been thought to be generated by chorus wave and electron interactions. While the coincidence of chorus and microburst occurrence supports the wave-particle interaction theory, more crucial evidences have not been observed to explain the origin of microbursts. We propose the measurement of energy dispersion of microbursts could be an evidence supporting wave-particle theory. During chorus waves propagate along magnetic field, the resonance condition should be satisfied at different magnetic latitude for different energy electrons. If we observed electron microbursts at low altitude, the arrival time of different energy electrons should make unique dispersion structures. In order to observe such energy dispersion, we need a detector having fast time resolution and wide energy range. Our study is motivated from defining the time resolution and energy range of the detectors required to measure microburst energy dispersions. We performed test particles simulation to investigate how electrons interact with simple coherent waves like chorus waves. We compute a large number of electron's trajectories and successfully produce energy dispersion structures expected when microbursts are observed with 10 msec time resolution detectors at the altitude of 600 km. These results provide useful information in designing electron detectors for the future mission.