Quantifying Extremely Rapid Flux Enhancements of Radiation Belt Relativistic Electrons Associated with Radial Diffusion

Previous studies have revealed a typical picture that seed electrons are transported inward under the drive of radial diffusion and then accelerated via chorus to relativistic energies. Here we show a potentially different process during the 2-3 October 2013 storm when Van Allen Probes observed extremely rapid (by about 50 times in 2h) flux enhancements of relativistic (1.8-3.4 MeV) electrons but without distinct chorus at lower L-shells. Meanwhile, Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms satellites simultaneously measured enhanced chorus and fluxes of energetic (~100- 300keV) seed electrons at higher L-shells. Numerical calculations show that chorus can efficiently accelerate seed electrons at L ~8.3. Then radial diffusion further increased the phase space density of relativistic electrons throughout the outer radiation belts, with a remarkable agreement with the observation in magnitude and timescale. The current results provide a different physical scenario on the interplay between radial diffusion and local acceleration in outer radiation belt.