We present a new model of self-consistent coupling between low frequency, ion-scale coherent structures with high frequency whistler waves in order to interpret Cluster data. The idea relies on the possibility of trapping whistler waves by inhomogeneous external fields where they can be spatially confined and propagate for times much longer than their characteristic electronic time scale. Here we take the example of a slow magnetosonic soliton acting as a wave guide in analogy with the ducting properties of an inhomogeneous plasma. The soliton is characterized by a magnetic dip and density hump that traps and advects high frequency waves over many ion times. The model represents a new possible way of explaining space measurements often detecting the presence of whistler waves in correspondence to magnetic depressions and density humps. This approach, here given by means of slow solitons, but more general than that, is alternative to the standard approach of considering whistler wave packets as associated with nonpropagating magnetic holes resulting from a mirror-type instability.

• Received 22 March 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.155005