Parameter Dependencies of Early‐Stage Tangential Discontinuity‐Driven Foreshock Bubbles in Local Hybrid Simulations

Abstract

AbstractForeshock bubbles (FBs) are significant foreshock transients that can accelerate particles and disturb the magnetosphere‐ionosphere system. In the kinetic formation model, foreshock ions interact with the discontinuity by performing partial gyrations to generate currents that change the magnetic field topology around the discontinuity. However, how different foreshock ion properties affect the growth of the field variations is not well understood. Therefore, we use 2‐D local hybrid simulations to study the effects of different foreshock ion distributions and properties on the growth of tangential discontinuity (TD)‐driven FBs. We discover that for a gyrophase‐bunched distribution with an initial phase where the guiding center is on the other side of the TD, the foreshock ions gyrate together across the TD, causing more foreshock ions to cross the TD and leading to a faster expansion of the structure than for a Maxwellian distribution. A ring distribution also yields higher expansion speeds because of the higher projected velocity into the new perpendicular direction. For Maxwellian distributions, there are positive and linear correlations of the FB expansion speeds with the initial foreshock ion densities, thermal speeds, parallel speeds, and sine of the TD magnetic shear angles. These parameter dependencies grow in strength as the structures evolve with time. The foreshock ion distributions and properties that lead to stronger currents produce more significant magnetic field variations and higher expansion speeds. Our study helps quantify the formation and expansion of FBs to forecast their space weather effects and contribution to shock acceleration.