Study of Substorm‐Related Auroral Absorption: Latitudinal Width and Factors Affecting the Peak Intensity of Energetic Electron Precipitation

AbstractPreviously, suggesting a scenario of “injected and drifting electron cloud” to describe the enhancements and precipitations of energetic electrons during substorms we used the linear prediction filter (LPF) method to build the empirical dynamical model of auroral absorption in the middle of auroral zone, driven by the midlatitude positive bay (MPB) index time series. In this paper, to understand better the relationship between magnetic dipolarization, injection, and energetic electron precipitation, we quantitatively explore correlations between dipolarization proxies (MPB and SML indices, substorm current wedge (SCW) intensity, location, and size) and precipitation‐related auroral absorption in the morning maximum region for 148 isolated substorms. We confirm good correlation of precipitation peak values with dipolarization proxies and show that the absorption amplitude is most strongly controlled by total SCW current and its azimuthal size, and is also influenced by solar wind‐dependent background energetic electron flux in the conjugate plasma sheet. This result confirms the adequacy of our starting assumption that there is a close relationship between the intensities and size of substorm dipolarizations and energetic particle injections. To extend the latitudinal coverage, we computed the LPF response functions for individual riometers of NORSTAR array. Finding similar shapes and amplitudes of their response at latitudes 63°–69° in the regions where maximal precipitation is statistically observed, we suggest, test, and approve that the auroral absorption in the belt 63°–69° may be predicted using a set of LPFs determined empirically in the center of auroral zone for various magnetic local times.