Electron Properties and Coulomb Collisions in the Solar Wind at 1 AU: Wind Observations

Details Electron Properties and Coulomb Collisions in the Solar Wind at 1 AU: Wind Observations Electron Properties and Coulomb Collisions in the Solar Wind at 1 AU: Wind Observations

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsh21a0735s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SH21A-0735

Physics

2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 7859 Transport Processes, 7871 Waves And Instabilities

Scientific paper

We analyse the electron properties of the solar wind observed by Wind at 1 AU in the ecliptic plane, during 50 days close to the last minimum of solar activity. The electron temperature anisotropy Te∥ }/T{eperpendicular to , which seems to depend on the wind speed Vsw, on the density Np, on the heliomagnetic latitude λ m or on the time, actually depends mainly on the Coulomb collisions. The collisional age Ae is the number of transverse collisions suffered by a thermal electron during the expansion of the wind over a scale of the density gradient. Ae depends on Vsw, on Np, and thus on λ m ; it also depends on the time because it changes strongly at the crossing of a stream interface. We show that Te∥ }/T{eperpendicular to is strongly correlated to 1/Ae. The upper bound of the observed electron heat flux is inversely proportional to the electron β factor parallel to the magnetic field. This is in favour of a regulation of the heat flux by whistler waves, inasmuch as we find a relation between the observed intensity of the whistler waves and the heat flux. However, the upper bound of the normalised heat flux is also inversely proportional to the collisional age. The Coulomb collisions thus seem to play a part in the regulation of the electron heat flux in the solar wind. We do not find any relation between the electron heat flux and the intensity of the waves in the ion acoustic range.

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