Geotail Observations of the Spatial Dependence of Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves on an Inbound Passage through the Dusk Flank Boundary Layer

On August 1, 1998, the Geotail spacecraft made an inbound passage perpendicular to the dusk magnetopause at the dusk terminator when the interplanetary magnetic field had been very northward for more than 10 hours. Typical 3-minute-period Kelvin-Helmholtz waves were observed and the density in the boundary layer and magnetopause was observed to have an unusually high value near 5 /cc. Compressible MHD calculations using the measured values at Geotail yield substantial growth rates that support the idea that the magnetopause was Kelvin-Helmholtz unstable. In contrast to many previous events where a spacecraft remained in the boundary layer, this passage allowed study of how the waves varied with distance inward from the magnetopause. In a layer adjacent to the magnetosheath, rapid magnetic field fluctuations were seen with variations of at least 50 nT/s. Initially the boundary waves led to transitions between the magnetosheath and the fluctuating region with magnetosheath-like densities and tailward velocities, but as the spacecraft moved inward, the transitions were more likely to be between the fluctuating region and a hotter region with magnetosphere-like densities of 5kc. Gradually the velocity perturbations began to exhibit 360 degree rotations. Such rotations are similar to the vortices seen earlier by the ISEE spacecraft throughout the magnetotail which were suspected of being caused by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of the boundary.