Energy Transport by Whistler Waves Around Dipolarizing Flux Bundles

During whistler wave excitation, electron energy is transferred from electrons to waves. There is little observational evidence that such a process operates effectively in the magnetotail, however. Using a large observational database from the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions durin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2019-11, Vol.46 (21), p.11718-11727
Main Authors: Zhang, Xu, Angelopoulos, V., Artemyev, A.V., Liu, Jiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Bundles
Electron energy
Energy
Energy flux
Energy sources
Energy transfer
Energy transport
Fluctuations
Flux
Free energy
Magnetotails
Transport
Wave excitation
Whistler waves
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Summary:During whistler wave excitation, electron energy is transferred from electrons to waves. There is little observational evidence that such a process operates effectively in the magnetotail, however. Using a large observational database from the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, we investigate whistler wave excitation within and around dipolarizing flux bundles (DFBs), critical energy transporters in the magnetotail, and the evacuation of perpendicular electron energy by whistler wave Poynting flux. We find that perpendicular anisotropy of suprathermal (~10 keV) electrons is the major free energy source for whistler wave excitation near DFBs. During earthward transport of electrons by DFBs, 3.7% of the suprathermal electron energy flux is evacuated in the form of whistler wave Poynting flux. This suggests that whistler waves play an important role in electron thermodynamics in the magnetotail by significantly modifying the otherwise adiabatically shaped electron distributions. Key Points Perpendicular anisotropy of suprathermal (~10 keV) electrons is the major free energy source for whistler wave excitation near DFBs Whistler waves can occasionally radiate up to several percent of the energy flux of the suprathermal electron population near DFBs
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2019GL084226