Collaborative Research: The Role of Interplanetary Shock Parameters in Their Propagation Through the Earth's Magnetosphere, and Their Impact on Particle Populations

The research will provide a more detailed understanding of the ways that interplanetary (IP) shocks, a common space weather event, can impact Earth’s magnetic environment (magnetosphere). Past studies have focused on a limited range of shock properties that do not reflect the possible breadth of parameters. This research study will expand the range of shock properties investigated by comparing observations from multiple space missions with detailed computer simulations. These detailed, multi-platform studies will be the first to fully exploit existing data sets to address fundamental problems that are vital for achieving NSF’s strategic goals. Such events may affect technological systems, astronauts and spacecraft, electrical power grids, and other important technologies that modern society has come to depend on. The long-term impact of the study will be to significantly benefit society by allowing us to eventually predict the geoeffectiveness of potential IP shock impacts and take steps to mitigate their damage. The results of our study may also be relevant to understanding the behavior of other planetary magnetospheres to IP shock impacts. Numerous satellites orbit the Earth within its magnetosphere, often taking measurements simultaneously after the occurrence of space weather events such as interplanetary shocks. The research will investigate a large database of such simultaneous observations, showing how different regions of near-Earth space react to shocks with different properties. This analysis will be complemented by computer simulations that investigate variations in one shock property at a time, which will reveal the most important properties or combinations and their possible consequences. Specifically, we will determine how the response, typically an electromagnetic wave pulse, propagates through the magnetosphere (radially, azimuthally, or a combination thereof); what wave mode and Poynting flux are associated with this response; and how the wave mode evolves. We will also characterize particle energization, scattering, and loss associated with the passage of the pulse through the dayside magnetosphere. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.