Radial diffusion simulations of the 20 September 2007 radiation belt dropout

This is a study of a dropout of radiation belt electrons, associated with an isolated solar wind density pulse on 20 September 2007, as seen by the solid-state telescopes (SST) detectors on THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms). Omnidirectional fluxes were converted to phase space density at constant invariants M = 700MeVG(-1) and K = 0.014R(E) G(1/2), with the assumption of local pitch angle alpha approximate to 80 degrees and using the T04 magnetic field model. The last closed drift shell, which was calculated throughout the time interval, never came within the simulation outer boundary of L* = 6. It is found, using several different models for diffusion rates, that radial diffusion alone only allows the data-driven, time-dependent boundary values at L-max = 6 and L-min = 3.7 to propagate a few tenths of an R-E during the simulation; far too slow to account for the dropout observed over the broad range of L* = 4-5.5. Pitch angle diffusion via resonant interactions with several types of waves (chorus, electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves, and plasmaspheric and plume hiss) also seems problematic, for several reasons which are discussed.