A Monte Carlo model of the ring current decay

A Monte Carlo type calculation has been used to model the decay of the magnetospheric ring current during the severe geomagnetic storm of February 1986. It is found that in principle our model is capable of reproducing the Dst variation observed during this event. We also show that the fluxes of energetic neutral atoms generated in charge-exchange collisions are quite large (up to 10 5 cm −2 s −1 sr −1 keV −1) and therefore well-suited to study the decay of the ring current.