Bremsstrahlung in the atmosphere at satellite altitudes

Transport calculations have been made to determine the emission of bremsstrahlung by electrons in the atmosphere and the penetration of this radiation to high altitudes where it can be detected by satellite-borne instruments. The calculations were done assuming uniform wide-area precipitation into the atmosphere of an electron flux isotropic over the downward hemisphere. The intensity and energy spectrum of the bremsstrahlung have been obtained for the case of incident monoenergetic electron beams at energies between 20 keV and 2 MeV, for incident electron beams with exponential spectra with e-folding energies between 5 and 200 keV.