Propagation characteristics of Pi 2 pulsations observed at high- And low-latitude MAGDAS/CPMN stations: A statistical study

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand better the propagation of Pi 2 waves in the nighttime region. We examined Pi 2 oscillations that showed high correlation between high- and low-latitude Magnetic Data Acquisition System/Circum Pan-Pacific Magnetometer Network stations (correlation coefficient: |γ| ≥ 0.75). For each horizontal component (H and D) we examined the magnetic local time (MLT) dependence of the delay time of high-latitude Pi 2 oscillations that corresponds to the highest correlation with the low-latitude Pi 2 oscillation. We found the delay time of the high-latitude H showed remarkable MLT dependence, especially in the premidnight sector: we found that in the premidnight sector the high-latitude H oscillation tends to delay from the low-latitude oscillation (<100 s). On the other hand, the delay time of the high-latitude D oscillation was not significant (∼±10 s) in the entire nighttime sector. We propose a Pi 2 propagation model to explain the observed delay time of high-correlation highlatitude H. The model quantitatively explains the trend of the event distribution. We also examined the spatial distribution of high-correlation Pi 2 events relative to the center of auroral breakups. It was found that the high-correlation Pi 2 events tend to occur away from the center of auroral breakups by more than 1.5 MLT. The present result suggests that the high-correlation H component Pi 2 oscillations at high latitude are a manifestation of forced Alfvén waves excited by fast magnetosonic waves. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.