Bicoherence Analysis of Oxygen Ion Cyclotron Harmonic Waves Observed by Van Allen Probes

Abstract

Abstract Bicoherence analysis is statistically performed for the oxygen ion cyclotron harmonic (OCH) waves observed by Van Allen Probes. While OCH waves and so‐called electromagnetic ion cyclotron harmonics have indistinguishable spectral characteristics in observation, they are believed to be excited by different mechanisms with the latter being suggested to arise from nonlinear wave‐wave coupling. Our result reveals that most of the OCH wave events have small bicoherence indices, so they are unlikely excited by wave‐wave coupling. The result is not much affected by the parameter choice in the bicoherence analysis, although increasing the subinterval length and/or reducing the subinterval overlap increases the chance of getting large bicoherence index values. Furthermore, the examination of two special events with large bicoherence indices shows that the observed phase relationship among different wave components does not align with the expectation from wave‐wave coupling. The events cannot be convincingly confirmed to be generated through wave‐wave coupling.

Keywords

• oxygen ion cyclotron harmonic waves