Oblique nonlinear whistler wave

Motivated by satellite observation of large-amplitude whistler waves propagating in oblique directions with respect to the ambient magnetic field, a recent letter discusses the physics of large-amplitude whistler waves and relativistic electron acceleration. One of the conclusions of that letter is that oblique whistler waves will eventually undergo nonlinear steepening regardless of the amplitude. The present paper reexamines this claim and finds that the steepening associated with the density perturbation almost never occurs, unless whistler waves have sufficiently high amplitude and propagate sufficiently close to the resonance cone angle.