Related papers: Observed instability constraints on electron heat …
Relative drifts between different species or particle populations are characteristic to solar plasma outflows, e.g., in the fast streams of the solar winds, coronal mass ejections and interplanetary shocks. This paper characterizes the…
The heat transport in the solar wind is dominated by the suprathermal electron populations, i.e., a tenuous halo and a field-aligned beam/strahl, with high energies and antisunward drifts along the magnetic field. Their evolution may offer…
In the solar wind electron velocity distributions reveal two counter-moving populations which may induce electromagnetic (EM) beaming instabilities known as heat flux instabilities. Depending on plasma parameters two distinct branches of…
Differential flows among different ion species are often observed in the solar wind, and such ion differential flows can provide the free energy to drive Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron and fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities. Previous works…
In the solar corona and solar wind, electron heat conduction is an important process that transports energy over large distances and helps determine the spatial variation of temperature. High-density regions undergoing rapid…
The formation of the observed core-halo feature in the solar wind electron velocity distribution function is a long-time puzzle. In this letter based on the current knowledge of nanoflares we show that the nanoflare-accelerated electron…
The evolution of the electron heat flux in the solar wind is regulated by the interplay between several effects: solar wind expansion, that can potentially drive velocity-space instabilties, turbulence and wave-particle interactions, and,…
Electron velocity distributions in the solar wind are known to have field-aligned skewness, which has been characterized by the presence of secondary populations such as the halo and strahl. Skewness may provide energy for the excitation of…
Plasma ions heating (especially minor heavy ions preferential heating) in fast solar wind and solar corona is an open question in space physics. However, Alfv\'en waves have been always considered as a candidate of energy source for corona…
The collisionless dissipation of anisotropic Alfv\'enic turbulence is a promising candidate to solve the solar wind heating problem. Extensive studies examined the kinetic properties of Alfv\'en waves in simple Maxwellian or bi-Maxwellian…
Electron temperature anisotropies and electron beams are nonthermal features of the observed nonequilibrium electron velocity distributions in the solar wind. In collision-poor plasmas these nonequilibrium distributions are expected to be…
Nonthermal features are ubiquitously observed in electron velocity distribution functions in the solar wind, yet their origin in the collisionless, turbulent, expanding solar-wind plasma remains unclear. We investigate how solar-wind…
In this work, we analyze the kinetic stability of a solar wind electron distribution composed of core and strahl subpopulations. The core is modeled by a drifting Maxwellian distribution, while the strahl is modeled by an analytic function…
We conduct two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to investigate the scattering of electron heat flux by self-generated oblique electromagnetic waves. The heat flux is modeled as a bi-kappa distribution with a T_parallel > T_perp…
The electrons are an essential particle species in the solar wind. They often exhibit non-equilibrium features in their velocity distribution function. These include temperature anisotropies, tails (kurtosis), and reflectional asymmetries…
We survey the electron heat flux observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) in the near-Sun environment at heliocentric distances of 0.125-0.25 AU. We utilized measurements from the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons and FIELDS…
We investigate the conditions under which parallel-propagating Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron waves are driven unstable by an isotropic ($T_{\perp \alpha} = T_{\parallel\alpha}$) population of alpha particles drifting parallel to the magnetic field…
The drift-Alfven instabilities in the magnetic field aligned (parallel) sheared flow of a finite beta plasma with comparable inhomogeneous ion temperature and homogeneous electron temperature are examined. The development of instabilities…
We analyze measured proton and electron temperatures in the high-speed solar wind in order to calculate the separate rates of heat deposition for protons and electrons. When comparing with other regions of the heliosphere, the fast solar…
There is wide observational evidence that electron velocity distribution functions (eVDF) observed in the solar wind generally present enhanced tails and field-aligned skewness. These properties may induce the excitation of electromagnetic…