Solitary structures associated with short large-amplitude magnetic structures (SLAMS) upstream of the Earth's quasi-parallel bow shock -: art. no. L16805

For the first time, solitary waves (SWs) have been observed within short large-amplitude magnetic structures (SLAMS) upstream of the Earth's quasi-parallel bow shock. The SWs often occur as bipolar pulses in the electric field data and move parallel to the background magnetic field at velocities of v = 400-1200 km/s. They have peak-to-peak amplitudes in the parallel electric field of up to E-parallel to' = 65 mV/m and parallel scale sizes of L-parallel to similar to 10 lambda(D). The bipolar solitary waves exhibit negative potential structures of \Phi(parallel to)\ = 0.4-2.2 V, i.e., ePhi(parallel to)/kT(e) similar to 0.1. None of the theories commonly used to describe SWs adequately address these negative potential structures moving at velocities above the ion thermal speed in a weakly magnetized plasma.