Relative ordering in the radial evolution of solar wind turbulence: the S-Theorem approach

Over the past few decades scientists have shown growing interest in space plasma complexity and in understanding the turbulence in magnetospheric and interplanetary media. At the beginning of the 1980s, Yu. L. Klimontovich introduced a criterion, named S-Theorem, to evaluate the degree of order in f...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annales geophysicae (1988) 2011-12, Vol.29 (12), p.2317-2326
Main Authors: CONSOLINI, G, DE MICHELIS, P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Physics of the ionosphere
Physics of the magnetosphere
Turbulence (Fluid dynamics)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Over the past few decades scientists have shown growing interest in space plasma complexity and in understanding the turbulence in magnetospheric and interplanetary media. At the beginning of the 1980s, Yu. L. Klimontovich introduced a criterion, named S-Theorem, to evaluate the degree of order in far-from-equilibrium open systems, which applied to hydrodynamic turbulence showed that turbulence flows were more organized than laminar ones. Using the same theorem we have evaluated the variation of the degree of self-organization in both Alfvénic and non-Alfvénic turbulent fluctuations with the radial evolution during a long time interval characterized by a slow solar wind. This analysis seems to show that the radial evolution of turbulent fluctuations is accompanied by a decrease in the degree of order, suggesting that, in the case of slow solar wind, the turbulence decays with radial distance.
ISSN:0992-7689
1432-0576
1432-0576
DOI:10.5194/angeo-29-2317-2011