Magnetopause ripples going against the flow form azimuthally stationary surface waves.

ABSTRACT: Surface waves process the turbulent disturbances which drive dynamics in many space, astrophysical and laboratory plasma systems, with the outer boundary of Earth's magnetosphere, the magnetopause, providing an accessible environment to study them. Like waves on water, magnetopause surface waves are thought to travel in the direction of the driving solar wind, hence a paradigm in global magnetospheric dynamics of tailward propagation has been well-established. Here we show through multi-spacecraft observations, global simulations, and analytic theory that the lowest-frequency impulsively-excited magnetopause surface waves, with standing structure along the terrestrial magnetic field, propagate against the flow outside the boundary. Across a wide local time range (09-15h) the waves' Poyntin

SUBMITTER: Archer MO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8494893 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature