Association of consecutive Pi2-Ps6 band pulsations with earthward fast flows in the plasma sheet in response to IMF variations

Abstract

On 11 March 2009, the H component had four consecutive bay-like variations accompanied by positive and negative deflections in the D component across the Atlantic like those affected by the substorm current wedge formation. A train of pulsations with a frequency range 2-10 mHz (referred to as Pi2-Ps6 band), sensed by Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS)/Canadian Array for Real-time Investigations of Magnetic Activity (CARISMA) magnetometers, had clearly three consecutive Pi2s followed by a Ps6 at low latitudes, but first Pi2 and then Ps6 at high latitudes mixed with large-amplitude Ps6 at midlatitudes. The geostationary orbit magnetometers sensed similar magnetic perturbations. THEMIS probes first observed earthward fast flows, magnetic dipolarizations, and modulated energetic particle fluxes at ~ XGSM -9.2 R_E, then at ~ XGSM -7.5 R_E for Pi2 and at ~ XGSM -18.0 R_E only for Ps6. They appeared during a very quiet period for northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) with a clock angle variation of low to high and then low. The H spectrum shows two harmonic frequencies ~2-4 mHz and ~8-10 mHz but the D spectrum one dominant frequency ~2-4 mHz. Pi2 can result from a combination of fast magnetospheric and plasmaspheric cavity resonances and Ps6 from a fast magnetospheric cavity resonance. The surface waves at the interface separating braking earthward fast flows from the ambient plasma convection region could lead to large-amplitude Ps6 at midlatitudes. Hence, consecutive Pi2-Ps6 band pulsations can be associated with earthward fast flows in the plasma sheet, expectedly driven by magnetotail reconnection, respectively, in the near-Earth region and the distant Earth one in response to IMF variations as in the two-neutral-point model.