Optimization of Radial Diffusion Coefficients for the Proton Radiation Belt During the CRRES Era

Proton flux measurements from the Proton Telescope instrument aboard the CRRES satellite are revisited, and used to drive a radial diffusion model of the inner proton belt at 1.1 ≤ L ≤ 1.65. Our model utilizes a physics‐based evaluation of the cosmic ray albedo neutron decay (CRAND) source, and coulomb collisional loss is driven by a drift averaged density model combining results from the International Reference Ionosphere, NRLMSIS‐00 atmosphere and Radio Plasma Imager plasmasphere models, parameterized by solar activity and season. We drive our model using time‐averaged data at L = 1.65 to calculate steady state profiles of equatorial phase space density, and optimize our choice of radial diffusion coefficients based on four defining parameters to minimize the difference between model and data. This is first performed for a quiet period when the belt can be assumed to represent steady state. Additionally, we investigate fitting steady state solutions to time averages taken during active periods where the data exhibits limited deviation from steady state, demonstrated by CRRES measurements following the March 24, 1991 storm. We also discuss a way to make the optimization process more reliable by excluding periods of variability in plasmaspheric density from any time average. Lastly, we compare our resultant diffusion coefficients to those derived via a similar process in previous work, and diffusion coefficients derived for electrons from ground and in situ observations. We find that higher diffusion coefficients are derived compared with previous work, and suggest more work is required to derive proton diffusion coefficients for different geomagnetic activity levels.