Universal energy limits of radiation belts in planetary and brown dwarf magnetospheric systems.

Abstract

Radiation belts are regions of magnetically trapped particle radiation found around all of the sufficiently magnetized planets in the Solar System and recently also observed around brown dwarfs, yet despite their ubiquity, there is not yet a general theory or model to predict the uppermost energy limits that any particular magnetospheric system's radiation belts can attain. By considering only the most fundamental loss processes, a model and corresponding theory are developed that successfully bound and explain the maximum observed energies of all documented radiation belt systems. This approach yields a relatively simple function for the uppermost energy limit that depends on only the surface magnetic field strength of the system. The model predicts an energy limit for all radiation belt systems that asymptotes at 7 ± 2 teraelectronvolts (TeV) (for protons and electrons), offering intriguing, previously unrecognized insight on potential sources of galactic cosmic rays. This model is also applied to an exoplanetary system, demonstrating that the planet is likely a synchrotron emitter and showcasing the model's use for identifying candidate targets for synchrotron-emitting astrophysical systems and revealing details critical to habitability at those remote worlds.