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Stolov, H., 1962: Bifurcation of the outer Van Allen belt and related auroral phenomena. J. Geophys. Res., 67, 404-406.
Fan, Meyer, and Simpson [1960] first showed the existence of bifurcation of the outer belt in their analysis of the Explorer VI data in talks late in 1959 and in their detailed paper at the Nice Conference, January 1960. A bifurcation of the outer VanAllen radiation belt can be seen in retrospect in the Pioneer I measurements [Rosen, Sonett, and Coleman, 1959], later supported by the additional measurements of Explorer VI [Arnoldy, Hoffman, and Winckler, 1960; Farley and Rosen, 1960; Rosen and Farley, 1961] and Explorer IV [Rothwell and McIlwain, 1960]. The inner branch of the outer belt has been called E2 and the outer branch E3 by Fan, Meyer, and Simpson [1960]. Figure 1 gives an idealized view of the outer belt representing a consensus of all available data on electron flux vs. radial distance in the equatorial plane. It is the purpose of this note to point out, first, that associated with the dual structure of the outer belt are two separate regions of auroral activity; and second, to support the view of Hess [1960] that the dual structure may result from the operation of two separate source mechanisms, namely, neutron beta decay for E2 and solar injection for E3.
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