On viscous attenuation of Alfvenic fluctuations in the solar wind

Physics – Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

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Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence, Solar Wind, Viscous Damping, Wave Attenuation, Anisotropy, Magnetic Fields, Plasma Physics, Solar Physics, Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin Method

Scientific paper

A WKB solution is derived for Alfvenic fluctuations in the solar wind damped by an anisotropic viscosity. The attenuation is demonstrated to be proportional to the energy in the fluctuation component parallel to the mean magnetic field. Spitzer's (1962) expression for the viscosity coefficient for wavelengths greater than the collisional free path is used, along with an assumption that the coefficient is zero for smaller wavelengths, to show that all damping occurs within 20 solar radii of the sun. The attenuation is predicted to alter the energy spectrum to one of exponential decay, which is not supported by satellite data, indicating that Coulomb collisions do not account for the observed spectra. The presence of a parallel component to the Alfvenic fluctuations near the sun is noted to result in acceleration of the solar wind in fast diverging streamtubes caused by the viscous damping.

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