English

Interpreting solar wind turbulent spectra beyond Taylor's Hypothesis

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2020-04-27 v2 Plasma Physics Space Physics

Abstract

In this paper we apply a methodology, recently proposed by Bourouaine and Perez (2019) (BP19), to interpret solar-wind turbulent power spectra beyond Taylor approximation (TA). The turbulent power spectra were measured using \emph{Helios} spacecraft data near 0.6 au. We use the model proposed in BP19 to reproduce the field-perpendicular power spectrum E(k)E(k_\perp) of anti-sunward Alfv\'enic fluctuations in the plasma frame (where kk_\perp is the field-perpendicular wavenumber) from the corresponding measured frequency power spectrum Psc(ω,θb)P_{\rm sc}(\omega,\theta_b) along the sampling angle θb\theta_b, which is the angle between the local magnetic field and the sampling direction. Here ω=2πf\omega=2\pi f and ff is the frequency of the time signal. Interestingly enough, we found that for all corresponding measured frequency power spectrum Psc(ω,θb)P_{\rm sc}(\omega,\theta_b) the reproduced field-perpendicular power spectrum E(k)E(k_\perp) is the same and independent of the considered sampling angle θb\theta_b. This finding is consistent with the fact that the analyzed turbulence is strong and highly anisotropic with kkk_\| \ll k_\perp (where kk_\| is the field-parallel wavenumber). Furthermore, for this specific time signal we found that the commonly used TA is still approximately valid with the important difference that a broadening in kk_\perp for each angular frequency ω\omega is present. This broadening can be described in the context of the methodology proposed in BP19.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.08924,
  title  = {Interpreting solar wind turbulent spectra beyond Taylor's Hypothesis},
  author = {Sofiane Bourouaine and Jean C Perez},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.08924},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in ApJL

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:20:32.581Z