Correlated Magnetic Field Dropouts and Langmuir Wave Activity at Switchback Boundaries

The first solar encounters by the Parker Solar Probe revealed the magnetic field to be dominated by short field reversals in the radial direction referred to as "switchbacks." While radial velocity and proton temperature were shown to increase inside the switchbacks, |B| exhibits very brief dropouts only at the switchback boundaries. Brief intensifications in spectral density measurements near the electron plasma frequency, fpe, have also been observed at these boundaries, indicating the presence of Langmuir waves triggered by electron beams. We perform a correlative study using observations from the Parker FIELDS Radio Frequency Spectrometer (RFS) and Fluxgate Magnetometer (MAG) to compare occurrences of spectral density intensifications at the electron plasma frequency (FPEI events) and |B| dropouts at switchback boundaries during Parker's first and second solar encounters. We find that only a small fraction of minor |B| dropouts are associated with FPEI events. This fraction increases with |B| dropout size until all dropouts are associated with FPEI events. This suggests that in the presence of strong |B| dropouts, electron currents that create the perturbation in |B| along the boundaries are also stimulating Langmuir waves.