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Radbelt: Work in progress to refactor the AE-8/AP-8 Van Allen belt model.

Status

Language
GitHub release
CI Status
codecov
last-commit

Compiling

A Fortran Package Manager manifest file is included, so that the library and test cases can be compiled with FPM. For example:

fpm build --profile release
fpm test --profile release

To use radbelt within your fpm project, add the following to your fpm.toml file:

[dependencies]
radbelt = { git="https://github.com/jacobwilliams/radbelt.git" }

Documentation

The latest API documentation can be found here. This was generated from the source code using FORD.

Original source

  • The original sourcecode was hosted at GSFC "Modelweb", an archive of which can be found here. It is presumed to be in the public domain. Reference: National Space Science Data Center, Data set PT-11B, Mar 1996. Dieter Bilitza, GSFC/NSSDC code 633, Greenbelt, MD 20771.

See also

Test case

See the radbelt_test.f90 and test.py files:

Code Runtime (sec) Cases per second
Python version 3.514 409
Fortran Function version (get_flux()) 1.622 1198
Fortran Class version (radbelt_type%get_flux()) 0.017 112259

The main difference in speed from using the class method is that the data files are only read once, rather than each time the function is called (which is done in the other two versions).

Brief description

These empirical models describe the differential or
integral, omnidirectional fluxes of electrons (AE-8) and protons
(AP-8) in the inner and outer radiation belts (electrons: L=1.1
to 11, protons: L=1.1 to 7) for two epochs representing solar
maximum (1970) and minimum (1964) conditions. The energy spectrum
ranges from 0.1 to 400 MeV for the protons and from 0.04 to 7 MeV
for the electrons. AE-8 and AP-8 are the most recent ones in a
series of models established by J. Vette and his colleges at NSSDC
starting in the early sixties. The models are based on almost all
available satellite data. It is IMPORTANT that the models maps for
solar maximum are used with a magnetic field model for epoch=1970
and for solar minimum for epoch=1964.

For each epoch and particle the model consists of a three-
dimensional table of (logarithm of) particle fluxes in energy, L-value,
and B/B0 (magnetic field strength normalized to the equator). The program
MODEL finds the particle fluxes for given energy, L-value and B/B0 by
interpolating in energy (subroutine TRARA1) and in L * B/B0 space (TRARA2).
The program RADBELT produces tables of integral or differential fluxes
for different energies varying with L or B/B0.

The coefficient files are provided in ASCII (*.asc) format:

Description Filename Size (KB)
AE-8, epoch 1970, solar maximum ae8max.asc 84
AE-8, epoch 1964, solar minimum ae8min.asc 81
AP-8, epoch 1970, solar maximum ap8max.asc 101
AP-8, epoch 1964, solar minimum ap8min.asc 102

In March 1995 the earlier used compressed model maps AP8MIC and AP8MAC
were replaced with the full maps AP8MIN/MAX with the help of D. Heynderickx
(BIRA, Brussel, Belgium) and A. Beliaev (INP/MSU, Moscow, Russia). Heynderickx
and Beliaev (1995) had found and corrected a small error in the AP8MIN map;
two lines had been exchanged.

References

Languages

Fortran94.3%Python4.6%Shell0.6%Meson0.4%

Contributors

BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
Created January 30, 2024
Updated January 9, 2026
jacobwilliams/radbelt | GitHunt