Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsh32a..05l&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SH32A-05
Physics
Plasma Physics
[7827] Space Plasma Physics / Kinetic And Mhd Theory, [7833] Space Plasma Physics / Mathematical And Numerical Techniques, [7857] Space Plasma Physics / Stochastic Phenomena
Scientific paper
In situ observations of solar wind at 1 AU have occasionally detected ion distributions in equilibrium, where the three-dimensional spectral slope or k-index approaches infinity (a Maxwellian distribution) [e.g., Hammond, C. M., et al. (1996), J. Geophys. Res., 100, 7881-7889]. More commonly, however, suprathermal particle distributions in the solar wind routinely show highly non-equilibrium stationary states, with a k~1.5 [Fisk, L. A., and G. Gloeckler (2006), Astrophys. J., 640, L79-L82], while other observations from Voyager 1 detected k~1.63 in the inner heliosheath, beyond the termination shock [Decker, R. B., et al. (2005), Science, 309, 2020-2024]. While this value is close to 1.5, the observations demonstrated a clear statistical difference between these two indices. Finally, recent observations show distributions for which k~2.45 is a special value, separating indices that appear to be near or far from equilibrium [e.g., Dayeh, M. A., et al. (2009), Astrophys. J., 693, 1588-1600; Dialynas, K., et al. (2009), J. Geophys. Res., 114, A01212]. In this study we show how all of these special values of k~1.5, 1.63, 2.45, and infinity can be predicted by a special relationship of the entropy, defined in the framework of non-extensive Statistical Mechanics as applied to space physics [Livadiotis, G., and D. McComas (2009), in Press in JGR-Space Physics], which characterizes plasmas in stationary states out of equilibrium. Amazingly, the four values observed in the solar wind plasma and mentioned above are uniquely identified with the four special points in the derived entropy function. This correlation suggests that the observations are detecting the primacy of these stationary states.
Livadiotis George
McComas David John
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