HR: 1340h
AN: NG23A-1187    [Abstracts]
TI: On the Characteristics and Generation of Magnetosheath Solitary Waves
AU: * Pickett, J S
EM: pickett@uiowa.edu
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Chen, L
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Santolik, O
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Santolik, O
AF: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, 18000 Czech Republic
AU: Gurnett, D A
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Kahler, S W
AF: Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Goldstein, M L
AF: NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Lavraud, B
AF: ISR-1, Space and Atmospheric Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Decreau, P
AF: CNRS, LPCE et Universite d'Orleans, Orleans, F-45071 France
AU: Lucek, E
AF: The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BZ United Kingdom
AB: Observations made by the Cluster WBD plasma wave instruments have recently revealed that solitary waves in Earth's magnetosheath have significantly shorter time durations (tens to a few hundreds of microseconds) than those in all other regions of Earth from the solar wind to the inner magnetosphere (several tenths to several ones of milliseconds). However, the peak-to-peak electric field amplitudes of the magnetosheath solitary waves appear to follow the general trend of solitary waves in the other regions, that being increasing electric field amplitudes with increasing local magnetic field strength. We expand on these findings by providing the results of a survey of the magnetosheath solitary waves in which we compare their amplitudes and time durations to the spacecraft distance from the bow shock, to the magnitude of the local ion flow velocity and to the angle of the local ion flow velocity to the magnetic field. The results of this survey would tend to support the conclusion that these solitary waves are locally generated rather than propagating to the measurement point from the bow shock or other location. We examine the low frequency (few hundred Hz to a few kHz) wave, electron density, and electron and ion data for further insight into the possibility that the magnetosheath solitary waves are locally generated.
DE: 7839 Nonlinear phenomena
DE: 7871 Waves and instabilities
DE: 2728 Magnetosheath
SC: Nonlinear Geophysics [NG]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting