Two dimensional simulation of amplitude modulated electron plasma waves Original Research Article

Highly modulated waves near electron plasma frequency with both parallel and perpendicular polarization have been observed near diffusion region at dayside and in the tail region. In this paper, two dimensional Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulation was performed to study the possible generation mechanism of these modulated electron plasma waves. It is shown that weak beam instability could generate the modulated Langmuir wave and the ambient magnetic field plays an important role in the formation of modulation. When the weak beam has loss cone distribution, highly modulated upper hybrid waves are generated and propagate with large angle to the ambient magnetic field. The properties of these modulated waves are discussed and compared with observations.