Electrostatic upper-hybrid waves and energetic electrons in the Earth's radiation belt

Electrostatic fluctuations near upper-hybrid frequency, which are sometimes accompanied by multiple-harmonic electron cyclotron frequency bands above and below the upper-hybrid frequency, are common occurrences in the Earth's radiation belt, as revealed through the twin Van Allen Probe spacecraft. In the literature upper-hybrid emissions are used for estimating the background electron density, which in turn can be used to determine the plasmapause locations, but the role of energetic electrons in generating such fluctuations has not been discussed. The present paper carries out detailed analyses of data from the Waves instrument, which is part of the Electric and Magnetic Field Instrument Suite and Integrated Science (EMFISIS) suite onboard the Van Allen Probes. Combined with theoretical calculation, it is demonstrated that the peak intensity associated with the upper-hybrid fluctuations is predominantly determined by tenuous but energetic electrons, and that denser and less energetic background electrons do not contribute much to the peak intensity. This finding shows that upper-hybrid fluctuations detected during quiet time are useful not only for the determination of the electron density, but also they contain information on the ambient energetic electron population as well.