Nonlinear structures in solar system plasmas

Abstract

The magnetosphere and the heliosphere constitute a magnificent laboratory for plasma wave phenomena, some of which have been studied in situ by ingenious spacecraft instrumentation, on board satellites probing interplanetary space as well as planetary and cometary environments. In several of these missions nonlinear structures have been observed. On the theoretical side, there are well known paradigms for nonlinear waves and solitons, like the different versions of the Korteweg-de Vries or nonlinear Schrödinger equations in multi-ion plasmas. We give a brief overview of how some of the more recent observations can be connected to the archetypical mathematical descriptions, in particular for magnetospheric boundary layer waves, nonlinear Alfvén waves in interplanetary space and solitary waves in cometary plasmas.