NONLINEAR EXCITATION OF LANGMUIR AND ALFVEN WAVES BY AURORAL WHISTLER WAVES IN THE PLANETARY MAGNETOSPHERE

A new excitation mechanism of auroral Langmuir and Alfven waves in the planetary magnetosphere is proposed. It is shown that a large-amplitude electromagnetic whistler wave propagating along the magnetic field lines can nonlinearly generate Langmuir and Alfven waves through three-wave parametric instabilities, provided the interacting waves satisfy the phase matching and wave helicity conservation conditions. The proposed mechanism can account for the observation of Langmuir-Alfven-whistler (LAW) auroral events in the Earth's magnetosphere. It is suggested that similar parametric processes are likely to occur in other field-aligned current regions of astrophysical plasmas wherein the electron plasma frequency is of the order of or less than the electron cyclotron frequency.