First observation of rising-tone magnetosonic waves

Abstract

Magnetosonic (MS) waves are linearly polarized emissions confined near the magnetic equator with wave normal angle near 90° and frequency below the lower hybrid frequency. Such waves, also termed equatorial noise, were traditionally known to be "temporally continuous" in their time-frequency spectrogram. Here we show for the first time that MS waves actually have discrete wave elements with rising-tone features in their spectrogram. The frequency sweep rate of MS waves, ~1 Hz/s, is between that of chorus and electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves. For the two events we analyzed, MS waves occur outside the plasmapause and cannot penetrate into the plasmasphere; their power is smaller than that of chorus. We suggest that the rising-tone feature of MS waves is a consequence of nonlinear wave-particle interaction, as is the case with chorus and EMIC waves. Key Points For the first time, we observe rising-tone MS wavesFrequency sweep rate: EMIC waves < MS waves < chorusGeneration process of MS waves is quite possibly nonlinear