Abstract
A theoretical formulation has been made for the history of an artificial shell of geomagnetically trapped electrons resulting from low-yielding nuclear detonations in the exosphere. The formulation assumes a source distribution and gives the spatial distribution of trapped electrons along the magnetic field lines, the drift rate around the world, and the configuration of the resulting shell. Interactions of the shell with the atmosphere lead to an electron density decaying inversely with time from injection for times longer than a characteristic lifetime that is a function of altitude and electron energy. The electron flux is found to be very nearly confined to a plane perpendicular to the field direction after several characteristic lifetimes. Scattering by geomagnetic fluctuations is probably not an important loss mechanism for the artificial shell, but it may be important for the hard component of the natural trapped belt. The effect of the geomagnetic anomaly over the south Atlantic has been described qualitatively. Jason rocket data and Explorer IV satellite data have been compared with the theoretical results.
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