First results of the high-resolution multibeam ULF wave experiment at the Ekaterinburg SuperDARN radar: Ionospheric signatures of coupled poloidal Alfvén and drift-compressional modes

A continuous experiment was carried out at the Ekaterinburg (EKB) stereoradar of the Russian segment of SuperDARN in order to examine the spatio-temporal characteristics of radar-detected magnetospheric ULF waves. The study of magnetospheric oscillations is based on analysis of scattering from field-aligned F-layer irregularities. Their E×B drift Doppler velocity at F-layer heights is associated with the background electric field in the ionosphere. During the experiment one of the radar channels operates in 0–2 beam scanning, with an integration time of 6s, which corresponds to the total 18-s time resolution at each beam. This allows detecting magnetospheric ULF waves with periods of 40s and up. Beam 0 is along the 132 magnetic meridian, so the registered velocity oscillations correspond to the wave electric field azimuthal component. Operation of the radar in this mode was started in December 2013. The first ULF wave events observed in the experiment and presented here occurred on 14 December 2013 and 2 January 2014 in the nightside magnetosphere during two geomagnetic disturbances classified as small magnetic storms and associated with high speed streams from coronal holes. Both the ULF events occurred after substorm-like auroral disturbances. The ULF waves observed during these events are classified as Pc5 geomagnetic pulsations. Two oscillation branches were observed, the higher and the lower frequency ones. As the azimuthal wave numbers m increase, the branches converge and merge into a single oscillation branch at some critical azimuthal wave number value m⋆. This ω(m) dependence is characteristic of the coupled Alfvén and drift-compressional waves which according to theory merge if the azimuthal wave number exceeds some critical value. This merged single oscillation branch represents an unstable drift ballooning coupling mode. Thus, the following interpretation of the observed events can be suggested; at mm⋆ the single branch can be identified with the drift ballooning coupling mode. •An experiment in studying ULF waves was performed at Ekaterinburg SuperDARN radar.•Two Pc5 events were studied.•The spectra of the pulsations comprised two merging or diverging branches.•The merging (diverging) branches corresponded to the growing (dropping) m number.•The pulsations are assumed to be coupled Alfven and drift-compressional