A case study of low-frequency waves at the magnetopause

L. Rezeau (1) , F. Sahraoui (1) , E. d'Humières (1) , G. Belmont (1) , T. Chust (1) , N. Cornilleau-Wehrlin (1) , L. Mellul (1) , Olga Alexandrova (1) , E. Lucek (2) , P. Robert (1) , Pierrette Décréau (3) , P. Canu (1) , I. Dandouras (4)

1 CETP - Centre d'étude des environnements terrestre et planétaires
2 Space and Atmospheric Physics Group [London]
3 LPCE - Laboratoire de physique et chimie de l'environnement
4 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements

We present the study of one of the first magnetopause crossings observed by the four Cluster spacecraft simultaneously, on 10 December 2000. Although the delays between the crossings are very short, the features of the boundary appear quite different as seen by the different spacecraft, strongly suggesting the presence of a local curvature of the magnetopause at that time. The small-scale fluctuations observed by the STAFF search-coil experiment are placed in relation to this context. A preliminary investigation of their behaviour on the boundary and in the neighbourhood magnetosheath is performed in comparison with the theoretical model of Belmont and Rezeau (2001), which describes the interaction of waves with the boundary.

Mots clés: turbulence); discontinuities; Space plasma physics (transport processes

Domaines: Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

L. Rezeau, F. Sahraoui, E. d'Humières, G. Belmont, T. Chust, et al.. A case study of low-frequency waves at the magnetopause. Annales Geophysicae, 2001, 19 (10/12), pp.1463-1470. ⟨10.5194/angeo-19-1463-2001⟩. ⟨hal-00329203⟩