Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Circularly polarized, nearly parallel propagating waves are prevalent in the solar wind at ion-kinetic scales. At these scales, the spectrum of turbulent fluctuations in the solar wind steepens, often called the transition range, before flattening at sub-ion scales. Circularly polarized waves have been proposed as a mechanism to couple electromagnetic fluctuations to ion gyromotion, enabling ion-scale dissipation that results in observed ion-scale steepening. Here we study Parker Solar Probe observations of an extended stream of fast solar wind ranging from ∼15 to 55 R ⊙ . We demonstrate that, throughout the stream, transition range steepening at ion scales is associated with the presence of significant left-handed ion-kinetic-scale waves, which are thought to be ion cyclotron waves. We implement quasilinear theory to compute the rate at which ions are heated via cyclotron resonance with the observed circularly polarized waves given the empirically measured proton velocity distribution functions. We apply the Von Kármán decay law to estimate the turbulent decay of the large-scale fluctuations, which is equal to the turbulent energy cascade rate. We find that the ion cyclotron heating rates are correlated with, and amount to a significant fraction of, the turbulent energy cascade rate, implying that cyclotron heating is an important dissipation mechanism in the solar wind.
Institutions: Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, The University of Texas at Dallas, University of New Hampshire, University of Colorado Boulder, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Université d'Orléans, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace, International Space Science Institute, University of Otago
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,400
OpenAlex ID: W4401806862