Physics and Astronomy Space Plasma Seminar - Xiaochen Shen - Shandong University
Title: "Effects of Solar Wind Positive and Negative Dynamic Pressure Impulses on Magnetospheric Pc5 ULF Wave Characteristics"
Location
Wilder 202
Sponsored by
Physics & Astronomy Department, Thayer School of Engineering
Audience
Public
Abstract: Ultra-low frequency (ULF) waves play an important role in transferring energy by buffeting
the magnetosphere with solar wind pressure impulses. The amplitudes of magnetospheric ULF waves, which are induced by solar wind dynamic pressure enhancements or shocks, are thought to damp in one half a wave cycle or an entire wave cycle. We report in situ observations of solar wind dynamic pressure impulse-induced magnetospheric ULF waves with increasing amplitudes. We found six ULF wave events induced by solar wind dynamic pressure enhancements with slow but clear wave amplitude increase. During three or four wave cycles, the amplitudes of ion velocities and electric field of these waves increased continuously by 1.3–4.4 times. Two significant events were selected to further study the characteristics of these ULF waves. We found that the wave amplitude growth is mainly contributed by the toroidal mode wave. Three possible mechanisms of causing the wave amplitude increase are discussed. First, solar wind dynamic pressure perturbations, which are observed in duration of 20–30 min, might transfer energy to the magnetospheric ULF waves continually. Second, the wave amplitude increase in the radial electric field may be caused by superposition of two wave modes, a standing wave excited by the solar wind dynamic impulse and a propagating compressional wave directly induced by solar wind oscillations. When superposed, the two wave modes fit observations as does a calculation that superposes electric fields from two wave sources. Third, the normal of the solar wind discontinuity is at an angle to the Sun-Earth line. Thus, the discontinuity will affect the dayside magnetopause continuously for a long time. Solar wind negative impulse has been paid less attention, although it has non-neglectful effects on wave characteristics. We present a ULF wave event in the dayside magnetosphere which shows a sudden decrease in frequency from 3.1 to 2.3 mHz around 0756 UT on 11 January 2010, when a solar wind dynamic pressure drop (from 5 to 2 nPa) was observed simultaneously. The wave exits globally. The phase differences between electric and magnetic fields indicate that the compressional mode wave is standing before and after the wave frequency decrease. This result suggests that the ULF wave should be associated with a cavity mode and the frequency decrease might be induced by the change of the cavity size. A theoretical calculation was made to estimate the cavity mode frequency. The calculated wave frequency before/after the negative impulse is 3.8/2.6 mHz, which is consistent with the observations.
Location
Wilder 202
Sponsored by
Physics & Astronomy Department, Thayer School of Engineering
Audience
Public
