On a possible connection between the longitudinally propagating near-Earth plasma sheet and auroral arc waves: A reexamination

Abstract

Azimuthally propagating low-frequency waves (or wavy structures) often occur in a localized region of the near-Earth plasma sheet and auroral arc immediately prior to auroral breakup. Although both are believed to be magnetospheric and ionospheric manifestations of a plasma sheet instability that may lead to substorm onset, the fundamental coupling processes behind their relationship are not yet understood. To address this question, we reexamined in detail a fortuitous conjunction event of prebreakup near-Earth plasma sheet and auroral arc waves, initially reported by Uritsky et al. (2009) using the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms space-ground observations. The event exhibited a morphological one-to-one association between longitudinally propagating arc wave (LPAW) in the ionosphere and Pi2/Pc4 range wave activity in the plasma sheet. Our analysis revealed that (1) the LPAW was the periodic luminosity modulation of the growth phase arc by faint, diffuse, green line-dominated auroral patches propagating westward along/near the arc, rather than some type of small-scale arc structuring, such as auroral beads/rays/undulations; and (2) the plasma sheet wave, which had a diamagnetic nature, propagated duskward with accompanying coincident modulation of field-aligned fluxes of 0.1-30 keV electrons. These findings suggest that the LPAW was likely connected to the plasma sheet wave via modulated diffuse precipitation of hard plasma sheet electrons (> ~1 keV), not via filamentary field-aligned currents, as expected from the ballooning instability regime. Another potential implication is that such prebreakup low-frequency wave activity in the near-Earth plasma sheet is not necessarily guaranteed to initiate prebreakup auroral arc structuring.