Modulation of Pc1 Wave Ducting by Equatorial Plasma Bubble

Abstract

AbstractDucting Pc1 waves are observed over a wide latitudinal range by the low‐Earth orbit satellites as compressional mode. In this paper, we present the first observation of the modulation of ducting Pc1 waves by equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) based on the Swarm satellites. We show two ducting Pc1 events propagating across EPBs that occurred on 7 April 2016 and on 27 September 2017. We found that the EPBs modulate the Pc1 wave propagation by setting up reflection boundaries and leakage holes in the ionospheric waveguide. We also found that changes of Pc1 wave intensities generally follow the electron density variation and that the intensity is stronger at higher density region. From the comparison between Swarm‐A and Swarm‐C observations, we conclude that ionospheric plasma plays an important role for Pc1 waveguide even though their density is significantly low in EPBs.