Hi Joseph, good to hear from you. I will send you a pdf of the published version. And yes, a preprint is on arxiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.02075 (but this is the same version posted here on ResearchGate).

We did not assume any mechanism for the formation of the soliton(s), as you did back in 1978 to explain the magnetic holes. This work was simply to look at applying the Inverse Scattering Transform to spacecraft data (which to our knowledge has not been done before). What this does is identify any soliton component of the observed magnetic field waveform. Of course, it does assume that the system is governed (at least approximately) by the DNLS equation. This is logical because the DNLS is a weakly nonlinear, weakly dispersive approximation to the full MHD equations. While there may be physics that we did not include (i.e., dissipation, nonlinear Landau damping, etc), we think it's highly probable that the DNLS captures the nonlinearity of the underlying system. Since the DNLS is fairly robust, we feel this method (the IST) is a good method for identifying the solitons.

As to their origin, this we leave to future work - and others.

Your idea of an IDP sounds intriguing. Certainly, any object traveling faster than the speed of a particular wave mode will emit Cerenkov-type radiation. So as long as the particle is moving fast, it will certainly emit Alfvén waves. I will read your papers, but one question is - how large would this IDP have to be to generate large amplitude waves? That might be a limiting factor.

Cheers,

Anthony

Hello again,

You are correct to produce large Alfven waves IDPs should have a diameter larger than a fraction of the wave length of the observed waves.

Of course there are solid bodies of all sizes in the interplanetary space from nano micrometeoroids to comets or fireball related objects...

The mass distribution of such objects can be found in the papers of  Ceplecha (1988) and later on... e.g. :

INFLUX OF INTERPLANETARY BODIES ONTO EARTH

CEPLECHA Z.

ASTRON.ASTROPHYS. vol: 263 p: 361..366 y:1992

Best

Joseph

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A large-amplitude Alfvén wave is not generated by instability , but launched by a "driver". In the case of auroral ionosphere, the intense auroral electrojet, divergence on the dusk side and convergence on the dusk side launches a large-amplitude Alfvén wave to propagate the Alfvén wave as discussed in Kan et al. (2011) in Annuals of Geophysics.

J R Kan,

Yes, in the auroral ionosphere, there are drivers such as you mention that generate the Alfvén waves. However, I don't think this is the only possible mechanism. Instabilities (such as the mirror instability) certainly have the capability to generate these waves. In addition, there is recent simulation work that suggests that these waves evolve from decaying turbulence (see http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/2041/20140151.abstract). So there are several possibilities.