Statistical study of precipitating electrons

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Abstract
Energy spectra of precipitating electrons are fitted to the sum of three distributions: a power law, a Maxwellian, and a Gaussian. This fitting procedure determines seven parameters that characterize the essential features of each spectrum. These characteristic parameters are used to carry out various studies involving precipitating electrons. It is shown that the absence of the power law population from a particular spectrum is related to the softness of the precipitating primary flux, that the Maxwellian temperature and the Gaussian peak energy have a positive correlation, the strength of which varies with local time, that the upward moving Gaussian population has a loss cone distribution, and that the one‐dimensional velocity distribution parallel to the magnetic field occasionally displays a plateau or even a hump on the tail.