Spatiotemporal Distributions of Electric‐Field Perturbations in the Inner Radiation Belt Revealed by Electron Zebra‐Stripe Observations

Abstract The banded “zebra‐stripe” structures, widely observed in energy spectrograms of inner radiation belt electron fluxes, provide an effective diagnostic of large‐scale electric‐field perturbations. However, the generation mechanism and spatiotemporal distributions of such perturbed fields remain unclear. Using high‐resolution data of electron fluxes from Macau Science Satellite‐1 (MSS‐1) within L < 2.5, we analyze the zebra‐stripe observations to extract parameters of the electric‐field perturbations, with emphasis on perturbation onset times across different L ‐shells. The results indicate that in some events, the electric‐field perturbations at different L ‐shells does not occur simultaneously. A statistical survey further indicates that the field perturbations could propagate either inward or outward, with a speed of the order of 1 hr per Earth radius. In each event category, the directions of the perturbed electric fields always display a broad distribution, with a statistical enhancement toward local noon. These findings provide new constraints on the spatiotemporal structure of inner‐belt electric fields and the mechanisms governing energetic‐electron transport.