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Chaston et al. 1999
Chaston, C.C., Carlson, C.W., Peria, W.J., Ergun, R.E. and McFadden, J.P. (1999). FAST Observations of Inertial Alfven Waves in the Dayside Aurora. Geophysical Research Letters 26: doi: 10.1029/1998GL900246. issn: 0094-8276.

Bursts of large amplitude impulsive electric and magnetic field oscillations are a common feature observed from FAST when crossing the dayside auroral oval at altitudes from 1500--2500 km. The oscillations have transverse amplitudes of up to 1 V/m and 100nT and exhibit a parallel electric field component with amplitudes which may be as large as 100mV/m. Calculation of E1/B1 over 100 events yields an average value four times the local Alfven speed. The wave period is usually less than 0.25s with 'perpendicular wavelengths' which average to 7.1 electron skin depths (c/&ohgr;pe~80 m). Poynting flux calculations indicate predominately downward fluxes with magnitude up 10-2 Wm-2 usually accompanied by a smaller upwards component. Invariably these waves are accompanied by field-aligned fluxes of down going and sometimes counterstreaming superathermal electrons. Comparison with theoretical studies indicate that these observations are consistent with the characteristics of a shear Alfven wave with k~&ohgr;pe/c propagating in the inertial dispersive regime and interfering with a reflected component. However the observed large parallel electric field component, if real, has yet to be explained. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Magnetospheric Physics, Auroral phenomena, Magnetospheric Physics, Energetic particles, precipitating, Magnetospheric Physics, MHD waves and instabilities, Ionosphere, Wave/particle interactions
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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