Role of VLF power line harmonic radiation in precipitating energetic electrons at high latitude

Abstract

<smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="metricconverter"> A study is carried out on energetic electron precipitation at high latitude (<i style="">L</i> = 4.3) by VLF power line harmonic radiation. The life-time of energetic electrons interacting with coherent VLF line radiation has been found to be 5.56 days only. This indicates a significant precipitation of energetic electrons (energy ~ a few keV) at high latitudes (<i style="">L=</i>4.3). The average flux of precipitating electrons by VLF line radiation has been estimated to be 3.47x10^-3 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 which is almost the same as caused due to coherent whistler-mode waves of 1 pT intensity at 5 kHz and is found to be consistent with energy flux deposited in the lower ionosphere at L ~ 2.4 caused by lightning induced precipitation [Inan <i style="">et al., J Geophys Res (USA), </i>92 (1987) 3293]. </smarttagtype>