Related papers: Electron-driven instabilities in the solar wind
In-situ observations of the solar wind (SW) plasma from 0.29 to 1AU show that the protons and alpha particles are often non-Maxwellian, with evidence of kinetic instabilities, temperature anisotropies, differential ion streaming, and…
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…
In-situ observations of the solar wind have shown that the electron velocity distribution function (VDF) consists of a quasi-Maxwellian core, comprising most of the electron population, and two sparser components: the halo, which are…
We perform a statistical assessment of solar wind stability at 1 AU against ion sources of free energy using Nyquist's instability criterion. In contrast to typically employed threshold models which consider a single free-energy source,…
We investigate the conditions under which parallel-propagating Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron (A/IC) waves and fast-magnetosonic/whistler (FM/W) waves are driven unstable by the differential flow and temperature anisotropy of alpha particles in the…
The proton temperature anisotropy in the solar wind is known to be constrained by the theoretical thresholds for pressure anisotropy-driven instabilities. Here we use approximately 1 million independent measurements of gyroscale magnetic…
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…
Large amplitude whistler waves at frequencies of 0.2 to 0.4 times electron cyclotron frequency are frequently observed in the solar wind. The waves are obliquely propagating close to the resonance cone, with significant electric fields…
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…
Using Parker Solar Probe measurements of the solar wind, we demonstrate that $\beta_{\parallel}$ is the main driver that determines which instabilities limit proton temperature anisotropy. At radial distances from 10 to 30 solar radii,…
Particle velocity distributions measured in the weakly collisional solar wind are frequently found to be non-Maxwellian, but how these non-Maxwellian distributions impact the physics of plasma turbulence in the solar wind remains…
The fluid behavior of the solar wind is affected by the heat flux carried by the suprathermal electron populations, especially the electron strahl (or beam) that propagates along the magnetic field. In turn, the electron strahl cannot be…
The selfgenerated wave fluctuations are particularly interesting in the solar wind and magnetospheric plasmas, where Coulomb collisions are rare and cannot explain the observed states of quasi-equilibrium. Linear theory predicts that the…
Properties of the electron mirror instability and its competition with the usually dominant whistler (electron cyclotron) instability driven by the electron perpendicular temperature anisotropy are investigated on the linear level using a…
Solar wind plasma is supposed to be structured in magnetic flux tubes carried from the solar surface. Tangential velocity discontinuity near the boundaries of individual tubes may result in Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, which may contribute…
How the solar wind is accelerated to its supersonic speed is intimately related to how it is heated. Mechanisms based on ion-cyclotron resonance have been successful in explaining a large number of observations, those concerning the…
We perform fully-kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of an hot plasma that expands radially in a cylindrical geometry. The aim of the paper is to study the consequent development of the electron temperature anisotropy in an expanding…
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…
We utilize observations from the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to study the radial evolution of the solar wind in the inner heliosphere. We analyze electron velocity distribution functions observed by the Solar Wind Electrons, Alphas, and…
Previous studies have shown that the observed temperature anisotropies of protons and alpha particles in the solar wind are constrained by theoretical thresholds for pressure-anisotropy-driven instabilities such as the…