On the isotropization of solar wind protons

Journal Article · Sat Dec 10 04:00:00 EST 2016 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/1/106· OSTI ID:22868332

Protons observed in the solar wind are characterized by temperature anisotropies whose upper and lower bounds can be partially explained by marginal instability conditions associated with various plasma instabilities. However, an outstanding problem is that the majority of data distributed in (β{sub ∥},T{sub ⊥}/T{sub ∥}) space are located away from the boundaries and occupy a broad region with the peak near isotropic condition. The present paper employs macroscopic-kinetic theory that includes adiabatic effects arising from various non-monotonic inhomogeneities of magnetic field and density, the influence from proton-cyclotron and parallel firehose instabilities, and collisional dissipation in order to explore the consequence of each effect. It is found that spatial inhomogeneities are the leading cause of the scattering of the data points away from the marginal stability boundaries in (β{sub ∥},T{sub ⊥}/T{sub ∥}) space, thus providing a potential explanation for observations.

• OSTI ID: 22868332
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 833; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ANISOTROPY
DENSITY
HELIOSPHERE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PLASMA
PROTONS
SCATTERING
SOLAR WIND
SPACE
SUN