We investigate the scattering of strahl electrons by microinstabilities as a mechanism for creating the electron halo in the solar wind. We develop a mathematical framework for the description of ...electron-driven microinstabilities and discuss the associated physical mechanisms. We find that an instability of the oblique fast-magnetosonic/whistler (FM/W) mode is the best candidate for a microinstability that scatters strahl electrons into the halo. We derive approximate analytic expressions for the FM/W instability threshold in two different βc regimes, where βc is the ratio of the core electrons' thermal pressure to the magnetic pressure, and confirm the accuracy of these thresholds through comparison with numerical solutions to the hot-plasma dispersion relation. We find that the strahl-driven oblique FM/W instability creates copious FM/W waves under low-βc conditions when , where U0s is the strahl speed and wc is the thermal speed of the core electrons. These waves have a frequency of about half the local electron gyrofrequency. We also derive an analytic expression for the oblique FM/W instability for βc ∼ 1. The comparison of our theoretical results with data from the Wind spacecraft confirms the relevance of the oblique FM/W instability for the solar wind. The whistler heat-flux, ion-acoustic heat-flux, kinetic-Alfvén-wave heat-flux, and electrostatic electron-beam instabilities cannot fulfill the requirements for self-induced scattering of strahl electrons into the halo. We make predictions for the electron strahl close to the Sun, which will be tested by measurements from Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter.
We present a long-duration (∼10 yr) statistical analysis of the temperatures, plasma betas, and temperature ratios for the electron, proton, and alpha-particle populations observed by the Wind ...spacecraft near 1 au. The mean(median) scalar temperatures are Te,tot = 12.2(11.9) eV, Tp,tot = 12.7(8.6) eV, and T ,tot = 23.9(10.8) eV. The mean(median) total plasma betas are βe,tot = 2.31(1.09), βp,tot = 1.79(1.05), and β ,tot = 0.17(0.05). The mean(median) temperature ratios are (Te/Tp)tot = 1.64(1.27), (Te/T )tot = 1.24(0.82), and (T /Tp)tot = 2.50(1.94). We also examined these parameters during time intervals that exclude interplanetary (IP) shocks, times within the magnetic obstacles (MOs) of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs), and times that exclude MOs. The only times that show significant alterations to any of the parameters examined are those during MOs. In fact, the only parameter that does not show a significant change during MOs is the electron temperature. Although each parameter shows a broad range of values, the vast majority are near the median. We also compute particle-particle collision rates and compare to effective wave-particle collision rates. We find that, for reasonable assumptions of wave amplitude and occurrence rates, the effect of wave-particle interactions on the plasma is equal to or greater than the effect of Coulomb collisions. Thus, wave-particle interactions should not be neglected when modeling the solar wind.
Analyses of 15,314 electron velocity distribution functions (VDFs) within 2 hr of 52 interplanetary (IP) shocks observed by the Wind spacecraft near 1 au are introduced. The electron VDFs are fit to ...the sum of three model functions for the cold dense core, hot tenuous halo, and field-aligned beam/strahl component. The best results were found by modeling the core as either a bi-kappa or a symmetric (or asymmetric) bi-self-similar VDF, while both the halo and beam/strahl components were best fit to bi-kappa VDF. This is the first statistical study to show that the core electron distribution is better fit to a self-similar VDF than a bi-Maxwellian under all conditions. The self-similar distribution deviation from a Maxwellian is a measure of inelasticity in particle scattering from waves and/or turbulence. The ranges of values defined by the lower and upper quartiles for the kappa exponents are κec ∼ 5.40-10.2 for the core, κeh ∼ 3.58-5.34 for the halo, and κeb ∼ 3.40-5.16 for the beam/strahl. The lower-to-upper quartile range of symmetric bi-self-similar core exponents is sec ∼ 2.00-2.04, and those of asymmetric bi-self-similar core exponents are pec ∼ 2.20-4.00 for the parallel exponent and qec ∼ 2.00-2.46 for the perpendicular exponent. The nuanced details of the fit procedure and description of resulting data product are also presented. The statistics and detailed analysis of the results are presented in Paper II and Paper III of this three-part study.
Abstract
Switchbacks are localized deviations from the nominal Parker spiral field in the solar wind. In this study, we investigate the electron distributions inside switchbacks, focusing primarily ...on the suprathermal (halo and strahl) populations. We explore electron parameters in relation to the angle of rotation of the magnetic field from radial to determine whether electron distributions observed within switchbacks have any differences from those outside of switchbacks. Our observations reveal several trends in the suprathermal electron populations inside switchbacks. We find that the sunward deficit in the electron velocity distribution function typically observed near the Sun is filled in at larger rotation angles. This results in the suprathermal electron density and heat flux in the antistrahl direction changing from a negative to a positive value. On many days, we also observe a positive correlation between the halo density and rotation angle, and this may suggest that the growth of the halo may fill in the sunward deficit. We also find that strahl distributions have an increased average angular spread at large magnetic field rotation angles. The increase in suprathermal electron flux in the antistrahl direction, and the increase in strahl width, together could suggest that enhanced scattering occurs inside switchbacks. Electron core beta values tend to increase with the magnetic field rotation angle, mainly due to a decrease in magnetic pressure. An increase in electron beta may favor the growth of instabilities inside switchbacks. The Parker Solar Probe observations therefore support an enhanced role for wave–particle interactions in switchbacks.
A statistical analysis of 15,210 electron velocity distribution function (VDF) fits, observed within 2 hr of 52 interplanetary (IP) shocks by the Wind spacecraft near 1 au, is presented. This is the ...second in a three-part series on electron VDFs near IP shocks. The electron velocity moment statistics for the dense, low-energy core, tenuous, hot halo, and field-aligned beam/strahl are a statistically significant list of values illustrated with both histograms and tabular lists for reference and baselines in future work. Given the large statistics in this investigation, the beam/strahl fit results in the upstream are now the most comprehensive attempt to parameterize the beam/strahl electron velocity moments in the ambient solar wind. The median density, temperature, beta, and temperature anisotropy values for the core(halo)beam/strahl components, with subscripts ec(eh)eb, of all fit results, respectively, are , , , and . This work will also serve as a 1 au baseline and reference for missions like Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter.
An analysis of model fit results of 15,210 electron velocity distribution functions (VDFs), observed within 2 hr of 52 interplanetary (IP) shocks by the Wind spacecraft near 1 au, is presented as the ...third and final part on electron VDFs near IP shocks. The core electrons and protons dominate in the magnitude and change in the partial-to-total thermal pressure ratio, with the core electrons often gaining as much or more than the protons. Only a moderate positive correlation is observed between the electron temperature and the kinetic energy change across the shock, while weaker, if any, correlations were found with any other macroscopic shock parameter. No VDF parameter correlated with the shock normal angle. The electron VDF evolves from a narrowly peaked core with flaring suprathermal tails in the upstream to either a slightly hotter core with steeper tails or much hotter flattop core with even steeper tails downstream of the weaker and strongest shocks, respectively. Both quasi-static and fluctuating fields are examined as possible mechanisms modifying the VDF, but neither is sufficient alone. For instance, flattop VDFs can be generated by nonlinear ion acoustic wave stochastic acceleration (i.e., inelastic collisions), while other work suggested they result from the combination of quasi-static and fluctuating fields. This three-part study shows that not only are these systems not thermodynamic in nature; even kinetic models may require modification to include things like inelastic collision operators to properly model electron VDF evolution across shocks or in the solar wind.
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) observed an interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) event during its first orbit around the Sun, among many other events. This event is analyzed by applying a wavelet ...analysis technique to obtain the reduced magnetic helicity, cross helicity, and residual energy, the first two of which are magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) invariants. Our results show that the ICME, as a large-scale magnetic flux rope, possesses high magnetic helicity, very low cross helicity, and highly negative residual energy, thus pointing to a magnetic fluctuation dominated structure. Using the same technique, we also search for small-scale coherent magnetic flux rope structures during the period from 2018 October 22 to November 21, which are intrinsic to quasi-two-dimensional MHD turbulence in the solar wind. Multiple structures with durations between 8 and 300 minutes are identified from PSP in situ spacecraft measurements. The location and scales of these structures are characterized by wavelet spectrograms of the normalized reduced magnetic helicity, normalized cross helicity, and normalized residual energy. Transport theory suggests that these small-scale magnetic flux ropes may contribute to the acceleration of charged particles through magnetic reconnection processes, and the dissipation of these structures may be important for understanding the coronal heating processes.
The solar wind shows periods of highly Alfvénic activity, where velocity fluctuations and magnetic fluctuations are aligned or antialigned with each other. It is generally agreed that solar wind ...plasma velocity and magnetic field fluctuations observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) during the first encounter are mostly highly Alfvénic. However, quantitative measures of Alfvénicity are needed to understand how the characterization of these fluctuations compares with standard measures from prior missions in the inner and outer heliosphere, in fast wind and slow wind, and at high and low latitudes. To investigate this issue, we employ several measures to quantify the extent of Alfvénicity-the Alfvén ratio rA, the normalized cross helicity c, the normalized residual energy r, and the cosine of angle between velocity and magnetic fluctuations . We show that despite the overall impression that the Alfvénicity is large in the solar wind sampled by PSP during the first encounter, during some intervals the cross helicity starts decreasing at very large scales. These length scales (often >1000di) are well inside inertial range, and therefore, the suppression of cross helicity at these scales cannot be attributed to kinetic physics. This drop at large scales could potentially be explained by large scale shears present in the inner heliosphere sampled by PSP. In some cases, despite the cross helicity being constant down to the noise floor, the residual energy decreases with scale in the inertial range. These results suggest that it is important to consider all these measures to quantify Alfvénicity.
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