The sources of ultra low frequency (ULF) waves in the magnetosphere are generally believed to be either the external solar wind perturbations or the internal plasma instabilities. When a sudden impulse of the solar wind dynamic pressure impinges on the magnetopause, ULF waves might be excited and thus the solar wind energy is transported into the earth's magnetosphere. In this paper, we study the ULF waves excited by different kinds of sudden solar wind pressure impulses through an MHD simulation. We primarily focus on the responses of the earth's magnetosphere to positive/negative impulses of solar wind dynamic pressure, and positive-negative impulse pairs. The simulation results show that the ULF waves excited by positive and negative impulse have the same amplitude and frequency, with 180° difference in phase, if the amplitude and durations of the input impulses are the same. In addition, it is found that field line resonances (FLRs) occur at certain L-shell regions of the earth's magneto-sphere after the impact of different positive-negative impulse pairs, which appear to be related to the duration of the impulses and the time interval between the sequential impulses. Another result is that the energy from the solar wind could be transported deeper into the inner magnetosphere by an impulse pair than by a single pulse impact. The results presented in this paper could help us to better understand how energy is transported from solar wind to the earth's magnetosphere via ULF waves. Also, these results provide some new clues to understanding of how energetic particles in the inner magnetosphere response to different kinds of solar wind pressure impulse impacts including inter-planetary shocks.
Energetic electrons and ions in the Van Allen radiation belt are the number one space weather threat. Understanding how these energetic particles are accelerated within the Van Allen radiation belt is one of the major challenges in space physics. This paper reviews the recent progress on the fast acceleration of "killer" electrons and energetic ions by ultralow frequency (ULF) waves stimulated by the interplanetary shock in the inner magnetosphere. Very low frequency (VLF) wave-particle interaction is considered to be one of the primary electron acceleration mechanisms because electron cyclotron resonances can easily occur in the VLF frequency range. Recently, using four Cluster spacecraft observations, we have found that, after interplanetary shocks impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, energetic electrons in the radiation belt are accelerated almost immediately and continue to accelerate for a few hours. The time scale (a few days) for traditional acceleration mechanisms, based on VLF wave-particle interactions to accelerate electrons to relativistic energies, is too long to explain our observations. Furthermore, we have found that interplanetary shocks or solar wind pressure pulses, with even small dynamic pressure changes, can play a non-negligible role in radiation belt dynamics. Interplanetary shocks interaction with the Earth’s magnetosphere manifests many fundamental space physics phenomena including energetic particle acceleration. The mechanism of fast acceleration of energetic electrons in the radiation belt responding to interplanetary shock impacts consists of three contributing parts: (1) the initial adiabatic acceleration due to strong shock-related magnetic field compression; (2) followed by the drift-resonant acceleration with poloidal ULF waves excited at different L-shells; and (3) particle acceleration due to the quickly damping electric fields associated with ULF waves. Particles end up with a net acceleration because they gain more energy in the first half of this cycle than they lose in the
ZONG QiuGang WANG YongFu YUAN ChongJing YANG Biao WANG ChenRui ZHANG XiangYun
磁层中的超低频波动(Ultra Low Frequency Wave,简称ULF波)通常被认为是由外界太阳风/行星际磁场扰动或者磁层内部的等离子体不稳定性激发的.当太阳风动压脉冲作用于磁层顶时,可能在磁层内部激发ULF波,从而将太阳风能量输运到地球磁层中.本文利用磁流体力学(MHD)数值模拟研究不同形式的太阳风动压脉冲作用下,在磁层中激发的ULF波的性质.我们主要关注地球磁层对太阳风动压正/负脉冲以及太阳风动压正-负脉冲对的响应.模拟结果表明,幅度和周期均相同的太阳风动压正脉冲和负脉冲,在磁层中所激发的ULF波幅度,周期均相同,然而相位相差180°.另外,对一个太阳风动压正-负脉冲对作用于偶极磁层的情况,在地球磁层内的某些特定区域仍可观察到磁力线共振(FLRs)现象,磁力线共振的区域分布和动压脉冲的周期以及动压脉冲对之间的时间间隔有关.同时模拟计算结果还表明,与单一脉冲相比较而言,在动压脉冲对的作用下,太阳风能量可以传递到地球磁层中更低纬度的区域.因此本文结果可以帮助我们更好地理解太阳风能量通过ULF波形式输运到地球磁层的机制;同时,还可以为研究有关内磁层中能量粒子对不同的行星际激波的响应方式提供线索.
Based on the magnetic field and plasma data obtained by GEOTAIL in 1992-1995 and WIND in1994-2009, the magnetic field and plasma properties in the magnetotail near lunar orbit were studied statistically using the superposed epoch analysis. The results showed that near the 0° sector the plasma density was negatively correlated with Dst index while the temperature was positively correlated with Dst index. The plasma velocity and magnetic field strength had little correlation with Dst index. Around the current sheet near the lunar orbit, the Bx varied between -15-15 nT, the plasma density was less than 0.4 cm^-3, the median of plasma density for all events was less than 0.1 cm^-3, the temperature varied from 0.016 to 8.98 keV, the median of the plasma temperature for all the events was -3 keV, the median of speed was about 200 km/s and the maximum speed was up to 1500 km/s. The tailward and earthward flows could be observed accompanied with the current sheet. For the current sheet cases with tailward flow, the Bx varied from -15 to 15 nT, the upper quartile of plasma velocity was more than 400 krn/s, the maximum speed was up to 1500 km/s. For the current sheet cases with tailward flow, the Bx varied from -10 to 10 nT, the upper quartile of plasma velocity was less than 400 km/s, the maximum speed was up to 1200 km/s. The median of plasma density, temperature and velocity were similar for the two categories. This paper discussed the relationship between above results and magnetic reconnection at magnetic tail, compared the above results with the observation in the far magnetotail. We fitted the statistical results according to the Harris current sheet model, and the observation was consistent with Harris current sheet model. The above results can provide useful information for the design and protection of lunar-orbiting spacecraft and can be used as the background magnetic field and plasma parameters in the numerical simulation of mid-magnetotail reconnection.
Interplanetary shock can greatly disturb the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, causing the temporal and spatial changes of the magnetic field and plasmas at the geosynchronous orbit. In this paper, we use the magnetic field data of GOES satellites from 1997 to 2007 and the plasma data of MPA on the LANL satellites from 1997 to 2004 to study the properties of magnetic field and plasma (0.03―45 keV) at the geosynchronous orbit (6.6 RE) within 3 hours before and after the arrival of shock front at the geosynchronous orbit through both case study and superposed epoch analysis. It is found that following the arrival of shock front at the geosynchronous orbit, the magnetic field magnitude, as well as GSM BZ component increases significantly on the dayside (8―16 LT), while the BY component has almost no change before and after shock impacts. In response to the interplanetary shock, the proton becomes much denser with a peak number density of 1.2 cm-3, compared to the typical number density of 0.7 cm-3. The proton temperature increases sharply, predominantly on the dusk and night side. The electron, density increases dramatically on the night side with a peak number density of 2.0 cm-3. The inferred ionospheric O+ density after the interplanetary shock impact reaches the maximum value of 1.2 cm-3 on the dusk side and exhibits the clear dawn-dusk asymmetry. The peak of the anisotropy of proton's temperature is located at the noon sector, and the anisotropy decreases towards the dawn and dusk side. The minimum of temperature anisotropy is on the night side. It is suggested that the electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) wave and whistler wave can be stimulated by the proton and electron temperature anisotropy respectively. The computed electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave (EMIC) intense on the day side (8―16 LT) with a frequency value of 0.8 Hz, and the wave intensity decreases towards the dawn and dusk side, the minimum value can be found on the night side. The computed electron whistler wave locates on the day side
The Dst index,designed as a proxy of ring current intensity,is known to be also affected by other magnetospheric current systems,e.g.magnetopause current.The pressure-corrected Dst index is obtained by removing the effects of the solar wind dynamic pressure and the quiet time ring current.However,all previous studies treated the correction coefficient as an averaged parameter for storms of different intensity.In this paper,based on the Burton's equations and employing two independent methods,we will show a positive correlation between pressure-correction coefficient b and the intensity of the storms.We divided our storm database(872 storms in total) into three categories according to the intensity of storms.In order to improve the accuracy of calculating,we also used the higher-resolution SYM-H index data instead of Dst index to compute the corrected Dst index during different storms.Furthermore,we are able to provide corrected magnetic storm index with high-time resolution(-1 min).
The ultra low frequency (ULF) wave in magnetosphere can act as an important means for solar wind energy inward transmission.This paper quantitatively analyzes the propagation process of the ULF wave triggered by the interplanetary shock propagating from inner magnetosphere equatorial plane along magnetic field lines to the top of the ionosphere and below ionosphere propagating process and establishes a relatively complete magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere propagation model which can be used to study the relationship between the amplitude of the ULF waves triggered by the interplanetary shock wave in magnetospheric space and the magnetic effect caused by the ULF waves.After a comparison with recent observations,we found that: in the event during November 7,2004 that an interplanetary shock wave interacted with the magnetosphere,Cluster satellites observed that electric field fluctuations and the band-pass filtered result of ground stations meridional component had similar characteristics.Comparing with the geomagnetic measurement near the footprints,we found that the electric field disturbance in the magnetosphere spread along the ground magnetic field lines in the form of the ULF waves and changed into geomagnetic disturbance.The result reveals that the ULF wave is in contact with the ground geomagnetic observation.The ULF waves couple with ionized components in ionosphere and spread to the ground in the form of electromagnetic waves.In this research,we believe that the magnetosphere,ionosphere and ground magnetic effects caused by interplanetary shock wave are the same physical phenomena responding in different locations.Based on the overall consideration of entire electromagnetic response to the interplanetary shock wave,we found that the correlation between CLUSTER multi-satellite observation and geomagnetic station observation is due to the ULF wave propagated in magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere system,and we quantitatively interpreted this response process.
WANG ChengRui1,2,ZONG QiuGang1,3 & WANG YongFu1 1 Institute of Space Physics and Applied Technology,Peking University,Beijing 100871,China
