Pitch angle and energy distributions of auroral electrons measured by the ESRO 4 satellite

Energy spectra and angular distributions of auroral electrons in the energy range 0.2–16 keV measured by the low-altitude polar orbiting satellite ESRO 4 are presented. The observations were made in the altitude range 800–1000 km near magnetic midnight. Energy-time spectrograms show inverted-V structures with peaked energy spectra. The inverted-V events are associated with anisotropic electron pitch angle distributions peaked at 0 deg. Frequently these distributions have a maximum also at 90 deg. Measurements of >43 keV electrons indicate that the acceleration probably occurs on closed field lines. It is found that many properties of the observed particle distributions can be explained by acceleration in an electric field parallel to the magnetic field lines, if trapping of particles under an increasing potential drop is included in the model.