Interaction between Alfven waves and a multicomponent plasma with differential ion streaming

Details Interaction between Alfven waves and a multicomponent plasma with differential ion streaming Interaction between Alfven waves and a multicomponent plasma with differential ion streaming

Mar 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994jgr....99.4193m&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research (ISSN 0148-0227), vol. 99, no. A3, p. 4193-4200

Computer Science

Sound

37

Magnetoacoustic Waves, Magnetohydrodynamic Waves, Solar Corpuscular Radiation, Solar Wind, Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin Method, Doppler Effect, Solar Activity Effects

Scientific paper

In this paper we describe the mutual interaction between Alfven waves and a multicomponent plasma (such as the solar wind) consisting of various ion species streaming differentially with speeds ui along the ambient radial magnetic field. It is shown that the wave adiabatic invariant discovered by Isenberg and Hollweg (1982) for the multi-ion system can be cast in the form of the conservation of wave action flux in which the 'intrinsic' frequency omegam, say, is simply the ratio between the mean squared Doppler-shifted frequency and the mean Doppler-shifted frequency both of which being weighted according to the mass density abundance of the various streaming ions. The existence of the invariant permits the self-consistent formulation of steady flows in a multi-ion system (such as the solar wind in which alpha particles are placed on the same footing as protons and not treated simply as test particles) subject not only to the coupling effect of an electric field or Coulomb friction but also to Alfven wave forces, which also bind the system together. This type of coupling arises essentially because variations in the Alfven wave pressure pomega or wave energy density Ew, are related to variations in the local hydrodynamic properties of the multi-ion plasma flow in such a way as to conserve the wave action flux. Furthermore, if the composite multi-ion system were subject to slow modulations of the medium in time as well as gradual variations in space, the Alfven wave amplitude would be governed by a conservation equation for the wave action variable. It is important to carry out such an investigation since it is the condition for stationary sound waves in such a system that yields the appropriate generalization of the idea of a sonic point for a multi-ion flow, thereby providing a physical framework within which the sonic critical curves may be discussed and analyzed. We have carried this out in the simplest case of extremely sub-Alfvenic flow in order to illustrate its importance in the context of the initial acceleration of the solar wind plasma and to clarify the nature of possible streaming instabilities.

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