Interplanetary magnetic field variations and slow mode transitions in the Earth's magnetosheath

Abstract

The event observed on September 17, 1978 on ISEE 1–2, which led to the concept of a stationary slow mode transition region (SMT) in the magnetosheath in front of the magnetopause, is revisited. We establish that the two edges of this SMT have an exogenous origin induced by two discontinuities of the interplanetary magnetic field. The key of our analysis is that the outer edge of the SMT is built up by a tangential interplanetary discontinuity which is observed on ISEE‐3 at a large distance from the Sun‐Earth line and which has an unusual direction. In this SMT the subsolar magnetosheath is entirely downstream of a quasi‐parallel bow shock, while upstream this SMT the subsolar magnetosheath is downstream of a quasi‐perpendicular shock. We identify three effects at the origin of the density enhancement in this SMT. We extend this approach to the original statistical study and we find that any SMT is connected to interplanetary magnetic field variations. This corroborates our hypothesis that SMTs have an exogeneous origin driven by interplanetary magnetic field variations.