Solar wind excitation of Pc5 fluctuations in the magnetosphere and on the ground

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to show the importance of solar wind excitation as a source of magnetospheric and ground Pc5 fluctuations. In particular, we show that pressure fluctuations, a nearly ubiquitous feature of the solar wind, drive magnetospheric compressional Pc5, whose amplitude and power increase in direct proportion to the amplitude and power of the solar wind pressure fluctuations. Previous studies of compressional Pc5 have focused primarily on internally generated waves on the dusk flank; here we highlight the pressure fluctuations associated with geoeffective high-speed streams (HSSs) and interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) during a time interval in March and April 2002, in the declining phase of the solar cycle, when there was a favorable alignment of satellites. Using three examples and a statistical survey, we show that for this time interval external forcing due to solar wind dynamic pressure fluctuations was dominant over internal forcing. Fluctuations driven by internal processes, occurring primarily at dusk and on the nightside, accounted for less than 20% of the total power. We also found that multiple external forcing processes were occurring during this interval, including evanescent propagation of compressional waves, field line resonance (FLR), and global mode excitation. We need to enlarge our vision of the source of ULF waves to include excitation by solar wind pressure fluctuations as a significant factor.