Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsh42b..05t&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SH42B-05
Physics
2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 2169 Sources Of The Solar Wind, 7867 Wave/Particle Interactions
Scientific paper
Various physical mechanisms have been considered as possible drivers of the solar wind. One of the possible acceleration mechanisms was suggested to be due to the heat flux generated by the suprathermal electrons in the solar wind [Olbert, 1982]. Such an idea has been applied to the ionospheric polar wind with photoelectrons playing the role of the suprathermal population [Tam et al., 1995, 1998], and has successfully addressed the various features observed by satellites. It has been shown that in the absence of wave-particle interactions, the suprathermal electron population can increase the ambipolar electric field, leading to higher ion velocities in the polar wind. More recently, we have investigated the effects of kinetic wave-particle interactions as a solar wind acceleration mechanism [Tam and Chang, 1999]. Our study also took into account Coulomb collisions and the global kinetic effects due to the suprathermal electron population. The study showed that these combined effects may account for the bulk acceleration of the solar wind. The wave-particle interactions, in particular, can lead to the preferential heating of the helium ions over the protons, as well as the occasionally observed double-peaked proton velocity distributions. In this study, we investigate the role of the suprathermal electron population in the acceleration of the solar wind. The results of our studies indicate that in the presence of strong wave-particle interactions, the contribution by the suprathermal electron effects becomes insignificant in the solar wind acceleration. This conclusion, however, may or may not be true for the weak wave-driven case. With strong wave-particle interactions, a recently introduced semi-kinetic model [Vocks and Marsch, 2001] which was based on reduced ion distributions, massless electron fluid, and an assumed electron temperature profile seems to be able to generate results that are consistent with those obtained with our more complete solar wind description.
Chang Tsao
Tam S. W.
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