Occurrence of periodic plasmapause oscillations in response to a record-breaking superstorm
Abstract The plasmapause boundary can efficiently modulate magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. During typical geomagnetic storms, the eroded plasmapause displays periodic oscillations that manifest as giant undulations of the aurora in the ionosphere. However, it remains unresolved whether such plasmapause oscillations occur during extreme storms. Here, we confirmed the occurrence of periodic plasmapause oscillations during the most intense superstorm over the past 20 years. Based on the auroral giant undulations, the extremely eroded plasmapause, down to 2 Earth radii (R E ), oscillated periodically at a scale of 1 R E in response to the May 2024 superstorm. Furthermore, we analyzed different and similar signatures of plasmapause oscillations during this superstorm and compared them with the signatures during typical storms. Our results suggest that plasmapause oscillations are an intrinsic and systematic pattern of external explosive energy input into the inner magnetosphere, thus providing physical constraints for global coupling models when addressing the extreme space weather conditions.
Authors
- Yi‐Jia Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3982-4093)
- Chaozhou Mou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1267-0039)
- Jih‐Hong Shue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-3119)
- Yongliang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9419-6881)
- Quan-Qi Shi
- Michel Blanc
- A. W. Degeling
- Qiu-Gang Zong
- Yoshizumi Miyoshi
- Zu-Yin Pu
- Atsuki Shinbori
- Yoshiya Kasahara
- Jian Liu
- Shi-Chen Bai
- Ayako Matsuoka
- Kazuhiro Yamamoto
- Fei He
- Fuminori Tsuchiya
Institutions
- Kanazawa University (JP)
- Planetary Science Institute (US)
- Shandong University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Tohoku University (JP)
- Peking University (CN)
- National Central University (TW)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (US)
- Institute of Space Sciences (ES)
- National Space Science Center (CN)
- Institute of Geology and Geophysics (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (FR)
- Nagoya University (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Geoscience Letters
- Published
- 2026-08-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s40562-026-00490-1
- Primary Topic
- Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences