Publication Date:
2013-06-04
Description:
[1] Several cases of short-time durational large amplitude 3-dimensional electrostatic solitary waves (ESWs) are observed within the transition layer of the terrestrial bow-shock by THEMIS/E. Their pulse-width is small (0.8 ~ 2 milliseconds) but the amplitude is large (greater than 100 mV/m), suggesting much strong potential drop. Two character angles ( θ 1 and θ 2 ) are defined to describe the 3-D characteristics of the ESWs, and it returns results as 76 0 〉 θ 1 〉 27 0 and 70 0 〉 θ 2 〉 20 0 , suggesting that the electron potential holes are mainly in 3-D ellipsoid-sphere-shaped structure, including “pancake-shaped” structure and “sphere-shaped” structure. None of the theories commonly used to describe ESWs adequately address these pancake-shaped and sphere-shaped 3-dimentional structure observed in the terrestrial bow-shock where ω ce 〈 〈 ω pe in a weak magnetized plasma. The observation of large 3-dimensional ESWs with different spatial structure during small time interval suggests anisotropic distribution of electric potentials and presents evidence of complex wave fluctuation within the bow-shock.
Print ISSN:
0094-8276
Electronic ISSN:
1944-8007
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
