Yao, Z;
Pu, ZY;
Rae, IJ;
Radioti, A;
Kubyshkina, MV;
(2017)
Auroral streamer and its role in driving wave-like pre-onset aurora.
Geoscience Letters
, 4
, Article 8. 10.1186/s40562-017-0075-6.
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Abstract
The time scales of reconnection outflow, substorm expansion, and development of instabilities in the terrestrial magnetosphere are comparable, i.e., from several to tens of minutes, and their existence is related. In this paper, we investigate the physical relations among those phenomena with measurements during a substorm event on January 29, 2008. We present conjugate measurements from ground-based high-temporal resolution all-sky imagers and in situ THEMIS measurements. An auroral streamer (north–south aligned thin auroral layer) was formed and propagated equatorward, which usually implies an earthward propagating plasma flow in the magnetotail. At the most equatorward part of the auroral streamer, a wave-like auroral band was formed aligning in the east–west direction. The wave-like auroral structure is usually explained as a consequence of instability development. Using AM03 model, we trace the auroral structure to magnetotail and estimate a wavelength of ~0.5 R E. The scale is comparable to the drift mode wavelength determined by the in situ measurements from THEMIS-A, whose footpoint is on the wave-like auroral arc. We also present similar wave-like aurora observations from Cassini ultraviolet imaging spectrograph at Saturn and from Hubble space telescope at Jupiter, suggesting that the wave-like aurora structure is likely a result of fundamental plasma dynamics in the solar system planetary magnetospheres.
Type: | Article |
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Title: | Auroral streamer and its role in driving wave-like pre-onset aurora |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
DOI: | 10.1186/s40562-017-0075-6 |
Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s40562-017-0075-6 |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10088443 |
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