Ensemble Modeling of Radiation Belt Electron Acceleration by Chorus Waves: Dependence on Key Input Parameters

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AbstractWe perform ensemble simulations of radiation belt electron acceleration using the quasi‐linear approach during the storm on 9 October 2012, where chorus waves dominated electron acceleration at L = 5.2. Based on a superposed epoch analysis of 11 similar storms when both multi‐MeV electron flux enhancements and chorus wave activities were observed by Van Allen Probes, we use percentiles to sample the normalized input distributions for the four key inputs to estimate their relative perturbations. Using 11 points in each input parameter including chorus wave amplitude Bw, chorus wave peak frequency fm, background magnetic field B0, and electron density Ne, we ran 114 simulations to quantify the impact of uncertainties in the input parameters on the resulting simulated electron acceleration by chorus. By comparing the simulations to observations, our ensemble simulations reveal that inaccuracies in all four input parameters significantly affect the simulated electron acceleration, with the largest simulation errors attributed to the uncertainties in Bw, Ne, and fm. The simulation can deviate from the observations by four orders of magnitude, while members with largest probability density (smallest perturbations in the input) provide reasonable estimations of output fluxes with log accuracy errors concentrated between ∼−2.0 and 0.5. Quantifying the uncertainties in our study is a prerequisite for the validation of our radiation belt electron model and improvements of accurate electron flux predictions.