2025 Workshop: Joint RB-SoS / CP session

Cold plasma in the Earth’s plasmasphere plays a key controlling role of radiation belt dynamics. Different plasma waves arise inside and outside the plasmasphere, which interact in different ways with radiation belt particles of varying energies. The distribution of cold plasma can alter both the efficiency of wave-particle interactions and the spatial extent of the region where the interaction takes place, impacting the radiation belt particle dynamics. Understanding the coupling between the radiation belts and the cold plasma environment is therefore key to understanding the radiation belt environment.