Accueil Imprimer Annuaire Plan du site Crédits Fil RSS du site Twitter LinkedIn Plans d'accès Contacts Annuaire Webmail Intranet outils & logiciels Logo

Accueil > A propos du LPP > Communication > Actualités archivées > 2022 > Energy transfer, discontinuities and solar wind heating : a local approach

Energy transfer, discontinuities and solar wind heating : a local approach

Toutes les versions de cet article : [English] [français]

The solar wind is a highly turbulent plasma for which the mean rate of energy transfer ε has been measured for a long time using the Politano–Pouquet (PP98) exact law. However, this law assumes statistical homogeneity that can be violated by the presence of discontinuities. Here, we introduce a new method based on the inertial dissipation (DI) which can be considered as a local formulation of the PP98 law. This formulation is based on the smoothing of the fields with a certain test function. The width of the latter allows to probe the different spatial scales σ of the plasma and thus to quantify how the energy propagates through them at a given time (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

We used this approach to estimate the local energy transfer rate at scale σ from the THEMIS-B and Parker Solar Probe (PSP) data taken in the solar wind at different heliospheric distances. Our study reveals that discontinuities near the Sun lead to a strong energy transfer that affects a wide range of scales σ. We also observe that switchbacks seem to be characterized by a singular behavior with an energy transfer varying as σ−3/4, which slightly differs from classical discontinuities characterized by a σ−1 scaling (see Figure 2). A comparison between the measurements of ε and DI shows that in general the latter is significantly larger than the former.

Figure 2

Voir en ligne : Vincent DAVID, Sébastien GALTIER, Fouad SAHRAOUI, Lina Z. HADID, 2022, Energy Transfer, Discontinuities, and Heating in the Inner Heliosphere Measured with a Weak and Local Formulation of the Politano–Pouquet Law, ApJ 927 200

Dans la même rubrique :


transparent
CNRS Ecole Polytechnique Sorbonne Université Université Paris-Saclay Observatoire de Paris
transparent
©2009-2025 Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (LPP)

Mentions légales
Exploitant du site : Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, Ecole Polytechnique route de Saclay F-91128 PALAISEAU CEDEX
Hébergeur : Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, Ecole Polytechnique route de Saclay F-91128 PALAISEAU CEDEX
Directeur de la publication : Anne Bourdon (Directrice)

Accessibilité