Generation of multiband chorus by lower band cascade in the Earth's magnetosphere

Abstract

AbstractChorus waves are intense electromagnetic whistler mode emissions in the magnetosphere, typically falling into two distinct frequency bands: a lower band (0.1–0.5fce) and an upper band (0.5–0.8fce) with a power gap at about 0.5fce. In this letter, with the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms satellite, we observed two special chorus events, which are called as multiband chorus because upper band chorus is located at harmonics of lower band chorus. We propose a new potential generation mechanism for multiband chorus, which is called as lower band cascade. In this scenario, a density mode with a frequency equal to that of lower band chorus is generated by the ponderomotive effect (inhomogeneity of the electric amplitude) along the wave vector, and then upper band chorus with the frequency twice that of lower band chorus is generated through wave‐wave couplings between lower band chorus and the density mode. The mechanism provides a new insight into the evolution of whistler mode chorus in the Earth's magnetosphere.