SAMPEX observations of precipitation bursts in the outer radiation belt

The occurrence frequency of precipitation bursts of > 1 MeV electrons in the outer radiation belt is examined using data from the SAMPEX satellite. Electron burst characteristics shown in this paper include the dependence of the precipitation on magnetic local time, radial distance and geomagnetic activity. Precipitation bursts with timescales <1 s, i.e., microbursts, are studied in detail, including their dependence on the phases of geomagnetic storms. It is found that precipitation bursts occur typically in the region between L = 4 and L = 6. Microbursts tend to occur at L Bower than the burs ts with timescales of several tens of seconds. The number of observed microbursts significantly increases during storms, appearing mainly in the morning sector early in the recovery phase of storms. These findings suggest that the microbursts may be due to interactions with electron whistler waves, which take place near the dawnside plasmapause in the density irregularities that are perhaps created in the "recovering" plasmasphere. The prevalence of bursty precipitation indicates that this enhanced loss component of the relativistic electron flux should be taken into account in any quantitative model of relativistic electron acceleration processes.