Electron Heating in the Fast Solar Wind

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

In-situ observations of charge states of fast solar wind ions revealhigher average charges than the coronal hole source regions asderived from spectroscopy, implying that some extra electron heatingand ionization must have occurred in the wind acceleration regionprior to freeze-in. We present an extensive analysis of Ulysses andACE charge state data near the boundaries of different coronalholes, and from different regions within coronal holes to comparewith the predictions of a model by Laming (2004). In this model,electrons are heated by lower-hybrid waves, which are in turngenerated by solar wind ions gyrating in cross-B density gradients.The observed charge states place constraints on the steepness andubiquity of cross-field density gradients, which may arise as theend-result of MHD turbulent cascade.In this poster, we describe some refinements to our model ofelectron heating, (non-Maxwellian distribution functions, ionheating above the stochasticity threshold) and give extensiveresults of our analysis and simulations, for comparison with theobservational data. We finally compare the degree of cross-B densityinhomogeneity required with that expected from models of the MHDturbulent cascade.Work supported by the NASA LWS program (JML) and an NSF SHINEFellowship (STL).

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