The magnetotail: A rough and leaky plasma waveguide for terrestrial radio waves

Abstract

A simulation of radio wave propagation is used to explain deep tail observations of the circumterrestrial radio sources. The large angular diameter of these sources and their large angular distance to Earth cannot be explained by simple reflections on the magnetopause. Waves must enter the inhomogeneous magnetosheath and this requires corrugations of the magnetopause. The angular diameter observations can be interpreted quantitatively. Some variations of the source apparent direction can also be interpreted as due to the rotation of a broad beam or to a change in the relatives intensities of two primary near‐Earth sources, but some others might require distorsions of the three‐dimensional shape of the tail or motions of that tail with respect to the observer.