IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms8019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ubiquity of Kelvin–Helmholtz waves at Earth’s magnetopause

Author

Listed:
  • Shiva Kavosi

    (University of New Hampshire)

  • Joachim Raeder

    (University of New Hampshire)

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is believed to be the dominant process by which solar wind plasma enters the magnetosphere. However, for periods of northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) reconnection is less likely at the dayside magnetopause, and Kelvin–Helmholtz waves (KHWs) may be important agents for plasma entry and for the excitation of ultra-low-frequency (ULF) waves. The relative importance of KHWs is controversial because no statistical data on their occurrence frequency exist. Here we survey 7 years of in situ data from the NASA THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macro scale Interactions during Substorms) mission and find that KHWs occur at the magnetopause ∼19% of the time. The rate increases with solar wind speed, Alfven Mach number and number density, but is mostly independent of IMF magnitude. KHWs may thus be more important for plasma transport across the magnetopause than previously thought, and frequently drive magnetospheric ULF waves.

Suggested Citation

  • Shiva Kavosi & Joachim Raeder, 2015. "Ubiquity of Kelvin–Helmholtz waves at Earth’s magnetopause," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-6, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8019
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8019
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms8019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. S. Kavosi & J. Raeder & J. R. Johnson & K. Nykyri & C. J. Farrugia, 2023. "Seasonal and diurnal variations of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability at terrestrial magnetopause," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.