Possible Evidence of Alfvén-cyclotron Waves in the Angle Distribution of Magnetic Helicity of Solar Wind Turbulence

Details Possible Evidence of Alfvén-cyclotron Waves in the Angle Distribution of Magnetic Helicity of Solar Wind Turbulence Possible Evidence of Alfvén-cyclotron Waves in the Angle Distribution of Magnetic Helicity of Solar Wind Turbulence

Apr 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011apj...731...85h&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 731, Issue 2, article id. 85 (2011).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

13

Solar Wind, Turbulence, Waves

Scientific paper

The fluctuating magnetic helicity is considered an important parameter in diagnosing the characteristic modes of solar wind turbulence. Among them is the Alfvén-cyclotron wave, which is probably responsible for the solar wind plasma heating, but has not yet been identified from the magnetic helicity of solar wind turbulence. Here, we present the possible signatures of Alfvén-cyclotron waves in the distribution of magnetic helicity as a function of θVB, which is the angle between the solar wind velocity and local mean magnetic field. We use magnetic field data from the STEREO spacecraft to calculate the θVB distribution of the normalized reduced fluctuating magnetic helicity σm. We find a dominant negative σm for 1 s < p < 4 s (p is time period) and for θVB < 30° in the solar wind outward magnetic sector, and a dominant positive σm for 0.4 s < p < 4 s and for θVB>150° in the solar wind inward magnetic sector. These features of σm appearing around the Doppler-shifted ion-cyclotron frequencies may be consistent with the existence of Alfvén-cyclotron waves among the outward propagating fluctuations. Moreover, right-handed polarized waves at larger propagation angles, which might be kinetic Alfvén waves or whistler waves, have also been identified on the basis of the σm features in the angular range 40° < θVB < 140°. Our findings suggest that Alfvén-cyclotron waves (together with other wave modes) play a prominent role in turbulence cascading and plasma heating of the solar wind.

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