Field–particle energy transfer during chorus emissions in space

Chorus waves are some of the strongest electromagnetic emissions naturally occurring in space and can cause radiation that is hazardous to humans and satellites1–3. Although chorus waves have attracted extreme interest and been intensively studied for decades4–7, their generation and evolution remain highly debated7. Here, in contrast to the conventional expectation that chorus waves are governed by planetary magnetic dipolar fields5,7, we report observations of repetitive, rising-tone chorus waves in the terrestrial neutral sheet, where the effects of the magnetic dipole are absent. Using high-cadence data from NASA’s MMS mission, we present ultrafast measurements of the wave fields and three-dimensional electron distributions within the waves, which provides evidence for chorus–electron interactions and the development of electron holes in the wave phase space. We found that the waves are associated with resonant currents antiparallel to the wave magnetic field, as predicted by nonlinear wave theory. We estimated the nonlinear field–particle energy transfer inside the waves, finding that the waves extract energy from local thermal electrons, in line with the positive growth rate of the waves derived from an instability analysis. Our observations may help to resolve long-standing controversies regarding chorus emissions and in gaining an understanding of the energy transport observed in space and astrophysical environments. Whistler-mode chorus waves have been observed in the tail region of the terrestrial magnetosphere, where the magnetic field is not dipolar so that chorus waves were not expected, and their generation mechanisms have been tested with state-of-the-art observations.