An association between anisotropic plasma heating and instabilities in the solar wind

Details An association between anisotropic plasma heating and instabilities in the solar wind An association between anisotropic plasma heating and instabilities in the solar wind

2009-11-13

arxiv.org/abs/0911.2715v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

four pages, four figures, submitted to PRL

Scientific paper

We present an analysis of the components of solar wind proton temperature perpendicular and parallel to the local magnetic field as a function of proximity to plasma instability thresholds. We find that $T_{\perp p}$ is enhanced near the mirror instability threshold and $T_{\parallel p}$ is enhanced near the firehose instability threshold. The increase in $T_{\perp p}$ is consistent with cyclotron-resonant heating, but no similar explanation for hot plasma near the firehose limit is known. One possible explanation is that the firehose instability acts to convert bulk energy into thermal energy in the expanding solar wind, a result with significant implications for magnetized astrophysical plasma in general.

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