Inferring Van Allen Radiation Belt Fluxes using Solar Dynamics Observatory Spike Data in Correlation with GOES-14 Measurements

Throughout the operation of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on-board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), solar images have been captured that occasionally exhibit distinct anomalies known as ”spikes”. These spikes manifest as pixel regions displaying unusually high numbers of digital counts, and they result from energetic charged particle interactions with the instrument’s detector system. By examining historical data, our research identified over 100 trillion spikes recorded throughout the past decade. In this project, we explore the frequency of spike detection and its correlation with radiation environment parameters, in order to generate a radiation belt flux data product using SDO. Our investigation involves studying the relationship between SDO/AIA spike data and radiation belt activity within the orbit of the SDO. By extracting radiation ”spike” data from the SDO/AIA images, we compile a comprehensive metric that correlates not only with geomagnetic parameters such as Kp, Ap, and Sym-H but also with the electron and proton fluxes as measured by the GOES-14 satellite. Our findings reveal a strong correlation between AIA spikes and the GOES-14 40 keV electrons detected by the MAGED and EPEAD instruments at the geographic equator, where the two satellite orbits intersect. The Spearman’s Correlation coefficients indicate substantial correlations of ρ = 0.73 and rho = 0.53, respectively. Additionally, a somewhat weaker correlation of ρ = 0.47 is observed with MAGPD protons during a two-year period when both missions provided uninterrupted data. This correlation substantiates the utility of SDO spike data in characterizing the Van Allen radiation belt fluxes, particularly at high magnetic latitudes inaccessible to other satellites [1]. The future work involves real-time prediction of electron flux using the existing model and an API and further improving upon the existing model by performing regression for more than three years of overlap between SDO and GOES data. Additionally, investigations will be conducted to examine the behavior of the model for different wavelengths, energies, GEOS pitch angles and regions of the radiation belt such as the cusps.

[1] Kasapis, S., Thompson, B.J., Rodriguez, J.V., Attie, R., Cucho-Padin, G., da Silva, D., Jin, M. and Pesnell, W.D., 2023. Turning noise into data: Characterization of the Van Allen radiation belt using SDO spikes data. Space Weather, 21(3), p.e2022SW003310.