English

Dependence of ion temperatures on alpha-proton differential flow vector and heating mechanisms in the solar wind

Space Physics 2020-02-05 v1 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

According to \emph{Wind} observations between June 2004 and May 2019, this Letter investigates the proton and alpha particle temperatures in the space of (θd\theta_d, Vd/VAV_d/V_A) for the first time, where θd\theta_d and VdV_d are the radial angle and magnitude of alpha-proton differential flow vector respectively, VAV_A is the local Alfv\'en speed. Results show that the temperatures significantly depend on θd\theta_d as well as Vd/VAV_d/V_A. In case of low proton parallel beta (βp<1\beta_{p{\parallel}} < 1), it is found that the proton perpendicular temperature is clearly enhanced when θd\theta_d is small (45\lesssim 45^\circ) and Vd/VA0.5V_d/V_A \gtrsim 0.5. On the contrary, the perpendicular temperature of alpha particles is considerably enhanced when θd\theta_d is large (90\gtrsim 90^\circ) or Vd/VAV_d/V_A is sufficiently small. The maximum of proton parallel temperature takes place at θd90\theta_d \sim 90^\circ accompanied by higher βp\beta_{p{\parallel}} and by larger turbulence amplitude of magnetic fluctuations in inertial range. This study should present strong evidence for cyclotron resonance heating of protons and alpha particles in the solar wind. Other mechanisms including Landau resonance and stochastic heating are also proposed, which tend to have different (θd\theta_d, Vd/VAV_d/V_A) spaces than cyclotron resonance heating.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2001.07172,
  title  = {Dependence of ion temperatures on alpha-proton differential flow vector and heating mechanisms in the solar wind},
  author = {G. Q. Zhao and H. Q. Feng and D. J. Wu and J. Huang and Y. Zhao and Q. Liu and Z. J. Tian},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.07172},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

21 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters