分类: 地球科学 >> 空间物理学 提交时间: 2016-12-26
摘要: Nonlinear cascade of low-frequency Alfvenic fluctuations (AFs) is regarded as one candidate of the energy sources to heat plasma during the non-adiabatic expansion of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). However, AFs inside ICMEs were seldom reported in the literature. In this study, we investigate AFs inside ICMEs using observations from Voyager 2 between 1 and 6 au. It is found that AFs with high degree of Alfvenicity frequently occurred inside ICMEs, for almost all the identified ICMEs (30 out of 33 ICMEs), and 12.6% of ICME time interval. As ICMEs expand and move outward, the percentage of AF duration decays linearly in general. The occurrence rate of AFs inside ICMEs is much less than that in ambient solar wind, especially within 4 au. AFs inside ICMEs are more frequently presented in the center and at the boundaries of ICMEs. In addition, the proton temperature inside ICME has a similar distribution. These findings suggest significant contribution of AFs on local plasma heating inside ICMEs.
分类: 地球科学 >> 空间物理学 提交时间: 2016-05-12
摘要: Turbulence is a chaotic flow regime filled by irregular flows. The dissipation of turbulence is a fundamental problem in the realm of physics. Theoretically, dissipation ultimately cannot be achieved without collisions, and so how turbulent kinetic energy is dissipated in the nearly collisionless solar wind is a challenging problem. Wave particle interactions and magnetic reconnection (MR) are two possible dissipation mechanisms, but which mechanism dominates is still a controversial topic. Here we analyze the dissipation region scaling around a solar wind MR region. We find that the MR region shows unique multifractal scaling in the dissipation range, while the ambient solar wind turbulence reveals a monofractal dissipation process for most of the time. These results provide the first observational evidences for intermittent multifractal dissipation region scaling around a MR site, and they also have significant implications for the fundamental energy dissipation process.
分类: 地球科学 >> 空间物理学 提交时间: 2016-05-12
摘要: Measurements of solar wind turbulence reveal the ubiquity of discontinuities. In this study we investigate how the discontinuities, especially rotational discontinuities (RDs), are formed in MHD turbulence. In a simulation of the decaying compressive three-dimensional (3D) MHD turbulence with an imposed uniform background magnetic field, we detect RDs with sharp field rotations and little variations of magnetic field intensity, as well as mass density. At the same time, in the de Hoffman-Teller frame, the plasma velocity is nearly in agreement with the Alfven speed, and is field-aligned on both sides of the discontinuity. We take one of the identified RDs to analyze its 3D structure and temporal evolution in detail. By checking the magnetic field and plasma parameters, we find that the identified RD evolves from the steepening of the Alfven wave with moderate amplitude, and that steepening is caused by the nonuniformity of the Alfven speed in the ambient turbulence.