Constraining Solar Wind Heating Processes by Kinetic Properties of Heavy Ions

We analyze the heavy ion components (A>4  amu) in collisionally young solar wind plasma and show that there is a clear, stable dependence of temperature on mass, probably reflecting the conditions in the solar corona. We consider both linear and power law forms for the dependence and find that a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2016-06, Vol.116 (25), p.255101-255101, Article 255101
Main Authors: Tracy, Patrick J, Kasper, Justin C, Raines, Jim M, Shearer, Paul, Gilbert, Jason A, Zurbuchen, Thomas H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Heating
Mathematical models
Plasma (physics)
Power law
Solar wind
Titanium
Turbulence
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Summary:We analyze the heavy ion components (A>4  amu) in collisionally young solar wind plasma and show that there is a clear, stable dependence of temperature on mass, probably reflecting the conditions in the solar corona. We consider both linear and power law forms for the dependence and find that a simple linear fit of the form T_{i}/T_{p}=(1.35±.02)m_{i}/m_{p} describes the observations twice as well as the equivalent best fit power law of the form T_{i}/T_{p}=(m_{i}/m_{p})^{1.07±.01}. Most importantly we find that current model predictions based on turbulent transport and kinetic dissipation are in agreement with observed nonthermal heating in intermediate collisional age plasma for m/q
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.116.255101