Auroral electron distributions derived from combined UV and X‐ray emissions

Abstract

The Polar Ionospheric X‐ray Imaging Experiment and the Ultraviolet Imager on board the Polar satellite provide the first simultaneous global scale views of the electron precipitation over a wide range of electron energies. By combining the results from these two remote sensing techniques we have developed a method to derive the electron energy distributions that reproduce the true electron spectra from 1 to 100 keV and that can be used to calculate the energy flux in the energy range from 100 eV to 100 keV. The electron energy spectra obtained by remote sensing techniques in three 5‐min time intervals on July 9 and July 31, 1997, are compared with the spectra measured by low‐altitude satellites in the conjugate hemisphere. In the energy range from 90 eV to 30 keV the derived energy flux is found to be 1.03±0.6 of the measured energy fluxes. The method enables us to present 5‐min time‐averaged global maps of precipitating electron energy fluxes with a spatial resolution of ∼700 km. The study shows that the combination of UV and X‐ray cameras on a polar orbiting spacecraft enables comprehensive monitoring of the global energy deposition from precipitating electrons over the energy range that is most important for magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling.