Observations of energetic electrons /E no less than about 200 keV/ in the earth's magnetotail - Plasma sheet and fireball observations

An earlier paper by the authors (1976) has reported on energetic electron anisotropies observed in conjunction with the acceleration regions identified by Frank et al., (1976). The present paper gives more detailed analyses of observations in the distant plasma sheet, including specific features of intensities, energy spectra, and pitch angle distributions of the very energetic electrons associated with intense plasma particle events, with energies ranging between 50 eV and 45 keV, detected with an electron/isotope spectrometer aboard the earth-orbiting spacecraft Imp 8. Two domains are considered: the plasma sheet and the regions near and within the localized magnetotail acceleration regions known as the fireball regions. The instrumentation used offered a number of observational advantages over many previous studies, including inherently low background, large geometric factors, excellent species identification, good angular distribution measurement capability, and availability of high resolution of differential intensities.