HF radar observations of Pc5 ULF pulsations driven by the solar wind

Abstract

We present HF radar observations of Pc5 field line resonances in the post‐midnight Antarctic ionosphere on April 28/29 1997. Simultaneous oscillations were seen in the solar wind parameters observed by WIND. The spectra of both sets of data show peaks near 1.3 mHz, 1.9 mHz, 2.7 mHz and 3.3 mHz. The data were bandpass filtered and a complex demodulation technique applied to calculate the instantaneous energy flux in the solar wind in each band and hence the power incident on the front of the magnetosphere 70 minutes later. The magnitude of the instantaneous power deposited in the ionosphere at each frequency through Joule heating followed this closely and was an order of magnitude smaller. We conclude that, at least on this occasion, the field line resonances could have been directly driven by the solar wind oscillations.