Regimes of contradiction in the study of strong diffusion

Abstract

Various aspects of Etchetoet al.'s theory are studied in detail. It is shown that the inequalitya <b <c fails at lowL shells. A comparative study of wave spectral densities generated during weak/strong diffusion events suggests that this theory is strictly not applicable at lowL shells. It is found that different criterea for measuring the diffusion of energetic electrons by ELF waves (100–3000 Hz) contradict each other. If one region is strong diffusion region for one criteria, it may be a weak diffusion region according to another criteria. It is found that whereas critical wave intensities (1–2 pT2/Hz) can cause strong diffusion of energetic electrons, if one applies Fokker—Planck's diffusion approach, very large wave intensities are needed for strong diffusion if we apply Etchetoet al.'s approach.