Simulated trapping of solar energetic protons for the 8-10 March 2012 geomagnetic storm: Impact on inner zone protons as measured by Van Allen Probes

Solar energetic protons (SEPs) have been shown to contribute significantly to the inner zone trapped proton population for energies lt;100 MeV and L gt; 1.3 (Selesnick et al., 2007, doi. org/10.1029/2006sw000275). The Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) on the Van Allen Probes launched 30 August 2012 observed a double-peaked (in L) inner zone population throughout the 7-year lifetime of the mission. It has been proposed that a strong SEP event accompanied by a CME-shock in early March 2012 provided the SEP source for the higher L trapped proton population, which then diffused radially inward to be observed by REPT at L sim; 2.

Here, we follow trajectories of SEP protons launched isotropically from a sphere at 7 Re in 15 s cadence fields from an Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry coupled to Rice Convection Model global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation driven by measured upstream solar wind parameters. The timescale of the interplanetary shock arrival is captured, launching a magnetosonic impulse propagating azimuthally along the dawn and dusk flanks inside the magnetosphere, shown previously to produce SEP trapping.