Heat flux and viscosity of ions in the collisionless solar wind

Details Heat flux and viscosity of ions in the collisionless solar wind Heat flux and viscosity of ions in the collisionless solar wind

Jun 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995sowi.confr..74w&link_type=abstract

Delaware Univ., International Solar Wind 8 Conference, p. 74

Other

Heat Flux, Ion Distribution, Solar Wind, Viscosity, Solar Protons, Collisionless Plasmas, Solar Magnetic Field, Wave-Particle Interactions, Mean Free Path, Larmor Radius

Scientific paper

Between 1 and 2 solar radii, the Coulomb-collision mean free path for thermal ions exceeds the scale height of the solar atmosphere. The expanding solar plasma becomes collisionless and the kinetics of the solar wind are no longer dominated by thermalizing collisions. The usual Braginskii-type expressions for solar wind ion heat flux and viscosity are no longer valid. However, another microscale still exists in the solar wind, dictated by the gyro-radius of ions in the turbulent embedded solar wind magnetic field. Wave-particle interactions will act to isotropize (but not thermalize) particle distributions, and the relevant microscale for this process is the ion gyro-radius. The ion distribution can be modelled as undergoing isotropizing 'collisions,' with the relevant mean free path scaling with gyro-radius. Here, the author presents the heat flux and viscosity expected for solar wind protons which are relaxing to isotropy on a microscale that scales with gyro-radius. The collisionless viscosity and heat flux have a functional dependence different than their collisional analogs. The collisional expressions for ion viscosity and heat flux drastically overestimate the efficiency of diffusive energy and momentum transport actually operative in the solar wind.

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