The Amplitude of Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in the Inner Solar Wind

Details The Amplitude of Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in the Inner Solar Wind The Amplitude of Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence in the Inner Solar Wind

Sep 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002apj...576..997s&link_type=abstract

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 576, Issue 2, pp. 997-1004.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

19

Magnetohydrodynamics: Mhd, Sun: Solar Wind, Sun: Corona, Turbulence

Scientific paper

Recent radio wave interplanetary scintillation observations have improved our knowledge of the level of turbulent fluctuations of plasma density in the inner solar wind at heliocentric distances of 16-26 Rsolar and less accurately outside this range. This information relates to fluctuations in the inertial subrange of the turbulence. Of particular concern in this paper is the heliocentric distance dependence of the power-law normalization parameter C2N. This measurement of C2N, when combined with independent measurements of the mean plasma density in the inner solar wind, indicates that the dimensionless amplitude of the turbulence ɛ≡σn/n is low, of the order of 6%-15%, where σn is the standard deviation of the density fluctuations and n is the mean value. The deduced value for ɛ depends on an assumed value for the outer scale of the turbulence, lo. I adopt a fiducial value of lo=1 Rsolar. A comparison is made with independent estimates of ɛ, from both radio remote sensing in the same part of space and in situ measurements at greater distances. Satisfactory agreement occurs. I discuss the possibility that this dimensionless density amplitude ɛ might be a proxy for the corresponding amplitude of the magnetic field fluctuations. This is a controversial assertion. However, if it is the case, the measurements suggest that the turbulence in the inner solar wind is weak, in the sense of being dynamically and thermodynamically important.

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