A study on the main periodicities in interplanetary magnetic field Bz component and geomagnetic AE index during HILDCAA events using wavelet analysis

The interplanetary and geomagnetic characteristics of High-Intensity Long-Duration Continuous AE Activity (HILDCAA) events are studied using wavelet analysis technique. The Morlet wavelet transform was applied to the 1 min interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) Bz component and the geomagnetic AE index during HILDCAA events. We have analyzed the AE data for the events occurring between 1975 and 2011, and the IMF Bz data (both in GSE and GSM) for the events between 1995 and 2011. We analyzed the scalograms and the global wavelet spectrum of the parameters. For 50% of all HILDCAA events, the main periodicities of the AE index are generally between 4 and 12 h. For the Bz component, the main periodicities were found to be less than 8 h for ~56% of times in GSM system and for ~54% of times in GSE system. It is conjectured that the periodicities might be associated with the Alfvén waves which have typical periods between 1 and 10 h. The results are discussed in the light of self organized criticality theory where the physical events have the capacity of releasing a considerable amount of energy in a short interval of time.