The residence-time of Jovian electrons in the inner heliosphere

¹ Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Leibnizstraße 11, 24118 Kiel, Germany
e-mail: vogt@physik.uni-kiel.de
² Centre for Space Research, North-West University, 2520 Potchefstroom, South Africa
³ Theoretische Physik IV, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstr. 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany

Received: 11 October 2019
Accepted: 21 May 2020

Abstract

Context. Jovian electrons serve an important role in test-particle distribution in the inner heliosphere. They have been used extensively in the past to study the (diffusive) transport of cosmic rays in the inner heliosphere. With new limits on the Jovian source function, that is, the particle intensity just outside the Jovian magnetosphere, and a new set of in-situ observations at 1 AU for cases of both good and poor magnetic connection between the source and observer, we revisit some of these earlier simulations.

Aims. We aim to find the optimal numerical set-up that can be used to simulate the propagation of 6 MeV Jovian electrons in the inner heliosphere. Using such a setup, we further aim to study the residence (propagation) times of these particles for different levels of magnetic connection between Jupiter and an observer at Earth (1 AU).

Methods. Using an advanced Jovian electron propagation model based on the stochastic differential equation approach, we calculated the Jovian electron intensity for different model parameters. A comparison with observations leads to an optimal numerical setup, which was then used to calculate the so-called residence (propagation) times of these particles.

Results. Through a comparison with in-situ observations, we were able to derive transport parameters that are appropriate for the study of the propagation of 6 MeV Jovian electrons in the inner heliosphere. Moreover, using these values, we show that the method of calculating the residence time applied in the existing literature is not suited to being interpreted as the propagation time of physical particles. This is due to an incorrect weighting of the probability distribution. We applied a new method, where the results from each pseudo-particle are weighted by its resulting phase-space density (i.e. the number of physical particles that it represents). We thereby obtained more reliable estimates for the propagation time.