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Excitation of Oxygen Ion Cyclotron Harmonic Waves in the Inner Magnetosphere: Hybrid Simulations
Author(s) -
Liu Kaijun,
Min Kyungguk,
Feng Bolu,
Wang Yan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2020gl090575
Subject(s) - physics , magnetosphere , atomic physics , computational physics , excitation , van allen probes , harmonic , resonance (particle physics) , cyclotron resonance , excited state , ion , wave propagation , superposition principle , electron , cyclotron , van allen radiation belt , optics , plasma , nuclear physics , acoustics , quantum mechanics
Hybrid simulations are carried out to investigate the excitation of oxygen ion cyclotron harmonic waves observed in the inner magnetosphere. The simulations show that these waves can be excited by energetic oxygen ions of a ring‐like velocity distribution. The excited waves have properties consistent with observations, but their nearly perpendicular propagation disagrees with the quasi‐parallel propagation from the singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis reported earlier. By performing the same SVD analysis on the simulated waves in a three‐dimensional simulation, it is demonstrated that the superposition of multiple waves with different azimuthal angles can cause the commonly used SVD analysis of wave propagation to yield incorrectly small wave normal angles. In addition, the results show that the enhanced waves scatter oxygen ions mainly along v ⊥ through cyclotron resonance. The waves may also scatter energetic radiation belt electrons through bounce resonance and transit time scattering, similar to fast magnetosonic waves.