Mechanism for Generating Differential Motion of Minor Ions in the Solar Wind

Details Mechanism for Generating Differential Motion of Minor Ions in the Solar Wind Mechanism for Generating Differential Motion of Minor Ions in the Solar Wind

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufmsh12a0389t&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #SH12A-0389

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2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 7807 Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration

Scientific paper

Measurements with SOHO/CELLAS in high-speed solar wind show that some minor ions such as O6+ have a relatively high drift velocity, however others such as Fe9+ tend to lag behind oxygen by a few tens of km/s (Hefti et al. 1998). This subtle observational feature has not yet been understood. A possible mechanism, based on quasi-linear theory of cyclotron resonance, for an understanding of this phenomenon is presented in this paper . The mass per charge of the ion O6+ and Fe9+ are different, a fact which results in different features of the resonance with ion-cyclotron waves. In a plasma with protons, alpha particles and electrons, the dispersion relation of cyclotron waves has two branches. The oxygen ions tend to resonate with the inward-propagating waves of the left-hand polarised (LHP) first branch and the outward-propagating waves of the LHP second branch. These resonances together may lead to a velocity distribution having a central velocity higher than the proton (solar wind bulk) velocity by about 50~km/s at 1~AU. The Fe9+ ions tend to resonate with both the inward and outward propagating waves of the first branch and may thus form a velocity distribution with the central velocity being very near the proton bulk velocity. These analytical results are shown to be supported by numerical results from a 2-dimensional simulation based on the quasi-linear diffusion equation.

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