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Session: Heliophysics and the Solar System

Name: Dr. Christos Katsavrias (National & Kapodistrian Univ. of Athens; NASA-GSFC)
Coauthors: Di Matteo Simone (NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
Kepko Lawrence (NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
Viall Nicholeen (NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
Greeley Ashley (NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA)
Type: Oral
Title: Properties of periodic density structures (PDSs) from L1 to 1 AU and related magnetospheric response
Abstract:

The solar wind contains structures at vastly different scales, from small scale 1–2 min magnetic holes to large-scale coronal mass ejections and stream interaction regions. In the past years, the “mesoscales” which here we define as radial scale sizes L ∼ 100 to several 1,000 Mm, or equivalently time scales of t ∼ a few minutes to several hours based on typical solar wind speeds, have gain scientific interest as they have been detected in a broad range of phenomena in the Sun to Earth chain. A subset of mesoscale solar wind structures are quasi‐periodic proton density enhancements, termed periodic density structures (PDSs). PDSs have been routinely detected at L1 and compared with Earth’s magnetospheric field fluctuations. Nevertheless, investigations on their propagation and evolution are challenging due to the limited amount of interplanetary multi-spacecraft observations. In this work we exploit multi-point and multi-satellite observations from L1 to 1 AU covering solar wind, foreshock, magnetosheath, magnetosphere, and radiation belts. We provide insight to some important questions such as: a) what is the azimuthal extend of PDSs at various size scales, b) does the bowshock and/or the Earth's magnetosheath affect the PDSs and consequently how the PDSs affect the magnetosphere and particularly the outer radiation belt.