分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Using high-resolution data from Solar Orbiter, we investigate the plasma conditions necessary for the proton temperature anisotropy driven mirror-mode and oblique firehose instabilities to occur in the solar wind. We find that the unstable plasma exhibits dependencies on the angle between the direction of the magnetic field and the bulk solar wind velocity which cannot be explained by the double-adiabatic expansion of the solar wind alone. The angle dependencies suggest that perpendicular heating in Alfv\'enic wind may be responsible. We quantify the occurrence rate of the two instabilities as a function of the length of unstable intervals as they are convected over the spacecraft. This analysis indicates that mirror-mode and oblique firehose instabilities require a spatial interval of length greater than 2 to 3 unstable wavelengths in order to relax the plasma into a marginally stable state and thus closer to thermodynamic equilibrium in the solar wind. Our analysis suggests that the conditions for these instabilities to act effectively vary locally on scales much shorter than the correlation length of solar wind turbulence.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: The solar wind in the inner heliosphere has been observed by Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to exhibit abundant wave activities. The cyclotron wave modes in the sense of ions or electrons are among the most crucial wave components. However, their origin and evolution in the inner heliosphere close to the Sun remain mysteries. Specifically, it remains unknown whether it is an emitted signal from the solar atmosphere or an eigenmode growing locally in the heliosphere due to plasma instability. To address and resolve this controversy, we must investigate the key quantity of the energy change rate of the wave mode. We develop a new technique to measure the energy change rate of plasma waves, and apply this technique to the wave electromagnetic fields measured by PSP. We provide the wave Poynting flux in the solar wind frame, identify the wave nature to be the outward propagating fast-magnetosonic/whistler wave mode instead of the sunward propagating waves. We provide the first evidence for growth of the fast-magnetosonic/whistler wave mode in the inner heliosphere based on the derived spectra of the real and imaginary parts of the wave frequencies. The energy change rate rises and stays at a positive level in the same wavenumber range as the bumps of the electromagnetic field power spectral densities, clearly manifesting that the observed fast-magnetosonic/whistler waves are locally growing to a large amplitude.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Space plasmas are three-dimensional dynamic entities. Except under very special circumstances, their structure in space and their behavior in time are not related in any simple way. Therefore, single spacecraft in situ measurements cannot unambiguously unravel the full space-time structure of the heliospheric plasmas of interest in the inner heliosphere, in the Geospace environment, or the outer heliosphere. This shortcoming leaves numerous central questions incompletely answered. Deficiencies remain in at least two important subjects, Space Weather and fundamental plasma turbulence theory, due to a lack of a more complete understanding of the space-time structure of dynamic plasmas. Only with multispacecraft measurements over suitable spans of spatial separation and temporal duration can these ambiguities be resolved. We note that these characterizations apply to turbulence across a wide range of scales, and also equally well to shocks, flux ropes, magnetic clouds, current sheets, stream interactions, etc. In the following, we will describe the basic requirements for resolving space-time structure in general, using turbulence' as both an example and a principal target or study. Several types of missions are suggested to resolve space-time structure throughout the Heliosphere.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Evidence for the presence of ion cyclotron waves, driven by turbulence, at the boundaries of the current sheet is reported in this paper. By exploiting the full potential of the joint observations performed by Parker Solar Probe and the Metis coronagraph on board Solar Orbiter, local measurements of the solar wind can be linked with the large-scale structures of the solar corona. The results suggest that the dynamics of the current sheet layers generates turbulence, which in turn creates a sufficiently strong temperature anisotropy to make the solar-wind plasma unstable to anisotropy-driven instabilities such as the Alfv\'en ion-cyclotron, mirror-mode, and firehose instabilities. The study of the polarization state of high-frequency magnetic fluctuations reveals that ion cyclotron waves are indeed present along the current sheet, thus linking the magnetic topology of the remotely imaged coronal source regions with the wave bursts observed in situ. The present results may allow improvement of state-of-the-art models based on the ion cyclotron mechanism, providing new insights into the processes involved in coronal heating.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: Ion cyclotron resonance is one of the fundamental energy conversion processes through field-particle interaction in collisionless plasmas. However, the key evidence for ion cyclotron resonance (i.e., the coherence between electromagnetic fields and the ion phase space density) and the resulting damping of ion cyclotron waves (ICWs) has not yet been directly observed. Investigating the high-quality measurements of space plasmas by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) satellites, we find that both the wave electromagnetic field vectors and the bulk velocity of the disturbed ion velocity distribution rotate around the background magnetic field. Moreover, we find that the absolute gyro-phase angle difference between the center of the fluctuations in the ion velocity distribution functions and the wave electric field vectors falls in the range of (0, 90) degrees, consistent with the ongoing energy conversion from wave-fields to particles. By invoking plasma kinetic theory, we demonstrate that the field-particle correlation for the damping ion cyclotron waves in our theoretical model matches well with our observations. Furthermore, the wave electric field vectors ($\delta \mathbf{E'}_{\mathrm {wave,\perp}}$), the ion current density ($\delta \mathbf{J}_\mathrm {i,\perp}$) and the energy transfer rate ($\delta \mathbf{J}_\mathrm {i,\perp}\cdot \delta \mathbf{E'}_{\mathrm {wave,\perp}}$) exhibit quasi-periodic oscillations, and the integrated work done by the electromagnetic field on the ions are positive, indicates that ions are mainly energized by the perpendicular component of the electric field via cyclotron resonance. Therefore, our combined analysis of MMS observations and kinetic theory provides direct, thorough, and comprehensive evidence for ICW damping in space plasmas.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We explore the multi-faceted important features of turbulence (e.g., anisotropy, dispersion, diffusion) in the three-dimensional (3D) wavenumber domain ($k_\parallel$, $k_{\perp,1}$, $k_{\perp,2}$), by employing the k-filtering technique to the high-quality measurements of fields and particles from the MMS multi-spacecraft constellation. We compute the 3D power spectral densities (PSDs) of magnetic and electric fluctuations (marked as $\rm{PSD}(\delta \mathbf{B}(\mathbf{k}))$ and $\rm{PSD}(\delta \mathbf{E}'_{\langle\mathbf{v}_\mathrm{i}\rangle}(\mathbf{k}))$), both of which show a prominent spectral anisotropy in the sub-ion range. We give the first 3D image of the bifurcation between power spectra of the electric and magnetic fluctuations, by calculating the ratio between $\rm{PSD}(\delta \mathbf{E}'_{ \langle\mathbf{v}_\mathrm{i}\rangle}(\mathbf{k}))$ and $\rm{PSD}(\delta \mathbf{B}(\mathbf{k}))$, the distribution of which is related to the non-linear dispersion relation. We also compute the ratio between electric spectra in different reference frames defined by the ion bulk velocity, that is $\mathrm{PSD}(\delta{\mathbf{E}'_{\mathrm{local}\mathbf{v}_\mathrm{i}}})/\mathrm{PSD}(\delta{\mathbf{E}'_{ \langle\mathbf{v}_\mathrm{i}\rangle}})$, to visualize the turbulence ion diffusion region (T-IDR) in wavenumber space. The T-IDR has an anisotropy and a preferential direction of wavevectors, which is generally consistent with the plasma wave theory prediction based on the dominance of kinetic Alfv\'en waves (KAW). This work manifests the worth of the k-filtering technique in diagnosing turbulence comprehensively, especially when the electric field is involved.