Kavli Affiliate: George Clark
| First 5 Authors: Drew L. Turner, Drew L. Turner, , ,
| Summary:
Radiation belts are regions of magnetically trapped particle radiation found
around all of the sufficiently magnetized planets in the Solar System and
recently also observed around brown dwarfs, yet despite their ubiquity, there
is not yet a general theory or model to predict the uppermost energy limits
that any particular magnetospheric system’s radiation belts can attain. By
considering only the most fundamental loss processes, a model and corresponding
theory are developed that successfully bound and explain the maximum observed
energies of all documented radiation belt systems. Interestingly, this approach
yields a relatively simple function for the uppermost energy limit that depends
on only the surface magnetic field strength of the system. The model predicts
an energy limit for all radiation belt systems that asymptotes at 7 +/- 2 TeV
(for protons and electrons), offering intriguing new insight on potential
sources of galactic cosmic rays. This model is also applied to an exoplanetary
system, demonstrating that the planet is likely a synchrotron emitter and
showcasing the model’s use for identifying candidate targets for
synchrotron-emitting astrophysical systems and revealing details critical to
habitability at those remote worlds.
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