Nightside plasmaspheric plume-to-core migration of whistler-mode hiss waves

Abstract

Whistler-mode hiss waves play an important role in the radiation belt electron depletion. Whether the hiss waves with significant differences in amplitude and propagation direction within the plasmaspheric core and plume are related to each other remains unclear. We here show that the plasmaspheric plume facilitates the energy conversion from energetic electrons to hiss waves and then guides hiss waves into the plasmaspheric core. Three ground and space missions captured the initial formation and subsequent rotation of the plasmaspheric plume in the noon-dusk-midnight sector following a strong substorm. The observed hiss waves in the nightside plasmaspheric plume and core propagated oppositely but highly correlated with each other at a time lag of 4-10 s. The linear instability of energetic electrons in the plasmaspheric plume qualitatively explains the frequency-dependence of hiss waves, and the ray-tracing modeling reproduces the propagation direction and timing of hiss waves.