First evidence for chorus at a large geocentric distance as a source of plasmaspheric hiss: Coordinated THEMIS and Van Allen Probes observation

Abstract

AbstractRecent ray tracing suggests that plasmaspheric hiss can originate from chorus observed outside of the plasmapause. Although a few individual events have been reported to support this mechanism, the number of reported conjugate events is still very limited. Using coordinated observations between Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) and Van Allen Probes, we report on an interesting event, where chorus was observed at a large L shell (~9.8), different from previously reported events at L < 6, but still exhibited a remarkable correlation with hiss observed in the outer plasmasphere (L ~ 5.5). Ray tracing indicates that a subset of chorus can propagate into the observed location of hiss on a timescale of ~5–6 s, in excellent agreement with the observed time lag between chorus and hiss. This provides quantitative support that chorus from large L shells, where it was previously considered unable to propagate into the plasmasphere, can in fact be the source of hiss.