Li, Jing‐Huan, Zhou, Xu‐Zhi, Wang, Shan, Liu, Zhi‐Yang, Zong, Qiu‐Gang, Yao, Shu‐Tao, Artemyev, Anton V., Omura, Yoshiharu, Li, Li, Yue, Chao, and Shi, Quan‐Qi
The terrestrial bow shock is the boundary where supersonic solar wind slows down abruptly near the magnetopause. The shock front geometry could be modulated by surface waves to form rippled structures, which impact the acceleration process of the solar wind particles. However, the rippled structures are hard to be identified unambiguously due to the similar signatures in single‐spacecraft observations between rippled shocks and reforming shocks. Here, we utilize the four‐spacecraft observations from the MMS mission to investigate an event of quasi‐perpendicular bow shock crossing. The periodic oscillations of shock normal directions and normal velocities support the scenario of surface wave propagation in the tangential direction. We also reconstruct the shock profile along the normal direction, and its monotonic shape further excludes the occurrence of shock reformation. These ripples are found to modulate the reflected ions and whistler wave packets, which adds to the complexity of the bow shock plasma environments. Plain Language Summary: Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous structures in the space and astrophysical plasma environments where significant energy conversion occurs between electromagnetic energy, kinetic energy, and thermal energy. These structures often exhibit nonstationary signatures, from which important information on the associated plasma dynamics can be extracted. In this paper, we report the spacecraft observations of a bow shock crossing with periodic enhancements of the magnetic field strength. Such signatures have been previously attributed either to the rippled shock structures or to the shock reformation process. These two potential processes are examined via simultaneous observations at four different locations, which shows the periodic oscillations of the local shock normal directions indicative of rippled rather than reforming shocks. We also show that the rippled shocks could spatially modulate the reflected ions and whistler wave packets, so they can also be detected periodically by the spacecraft. This phenomenon has been reported on other planets across a wide range of Mach numbers, indicating that the shock ripples, universal in the plasma universe, play a critical role in impacting particle dynamics and shock evolution processes. Key Points: Periodic magnetic strength enhancements are observed during the bow shock crossing of the MMS spacecraftMulti‐spacecraft analysis supports the scenario of shock ripples rather than the shock reformation processThe surface waves alter the shock geometry, modulating the reflected ions and whistler wave packets [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]