Extremely Large Amplitude Whistler Waves in the Earth's Inner Radiation Belt

Details Extremely Large Amplitude Whistler Waves in the Earth's Inner Radiation Belt Extremely Large Amplitude Whistler Waves in the Earth's Inner Radiation Belt

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsm23c..05b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SM23C-05

Physics

[2772] Magnetospheric Physics / Plasma Waves And Instabilities, [2774] Magnetospheric Physics / Radiation Belts

Scientific paper

We report STEREO observations of extremely large amplitude whistler mode waves in the Earth's nightside inner radiation belt (L<2 on November 6th, 2006) associated with lightning strikes and signals from the Navy transmitter NPM in Hawaii. The waves have amplitudes of up to >100 mV/m (zero-peak), 100-1000 times larger in amplitude than previously observed in this region. Past measurements have shown that the amplitudes of lightning whistlers can be much greater than the amplitudes of the NPM signal at the base of the ionosphere. However amplitudes of the two types of waves observed at STEREO are comparable, suggesting that the waves grow to such large amplitudes within the ionosphere or while in the inner radiation belts. Waveforms observed on STEREO A undergo semi-periodic polarization reversals at the lower hybrid and NPM transmitter frequencies when the transmitter is operating in continuous transmission mode. This may be related to small-scale-field-aligned density striations and plasma heating caused by the NPM transmitter. Recent simulations have shown that large amplitude, oblique whistlers can interact very strongly with high energy electrons via pitch angle and/or energy diffusion. Thus these whistlers may be an important previously unaccounted for source of energization or pitch angle scattering for the inner radiation belt. In addition, the polarization reversals caused by the NPM transmitter have implications for wave/particle interaction in the inner radiation belt since left- and right-handed waves interact with different particle populations.

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