0.5-4 Å X-RAY BRIGHTENINGS IN THE MAGNETOSPHERE OBSERVED BY THEGEOSTATIONARY OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITES

Abstract

We found 217 X-ray brightening events in Earth's magnetosphere. These events occur in the high-energy band (0.5–4 Å) of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) X-ray light curves, although GOES X-ray light curves are frequently used as indices of solar flare magnitudes. We found that (1) brightening events are absent in the low-energy band (1–8 Å), unlike those associated with solar flares; and (2) the peak fluxes, durations, and onset times of these events depend on the magnetic local time (MLT). The events were detected in 2006, 2010, and 2011 at around 19–10 MLT, that is, from night to morning. They typically lasted for 2–3 hr. Their peak fluxes are less than 3 × 10−8 W m−2 in the 0.5–4 Å band and are maximized around 0–5 MLT. From these MLT dependencies, we constructed an MLT time profile of X-ray brightening events. Because 0.5–4 and 1–8 Å fluxes were observed and had the same order of magnitude when GOES 14 passed through Earth's shadow, we expected that X-ray brightening events in the 1–8 Å band are obscured by high-background X-ray fluxes coming from the Sun. We also found coincidence between X-ray brightening events and aurora substorms. In the majority of our events, the minimum geomagnetic field values (AL index) are below −400 nT. From these results and consideration of the GOES satellite orbit, we expect that these X-ray brightening events occur in the magnetosphere. We cannot, however, clarify the radiative process of the observed X-ray brightening events.