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Title:
Turbulence in the Sub-Alfvénic Solar Wind Driven by Reflection of Low-Frequency Alfvén Waves
Authors:
Verdini, A.; Velli, M.; Buchlin, E.
Affiliation:
AA(Observatoire Royale de Belgique, 3 Avenue Circulaire, 1180, Bruxelles, Belgium ), AB(Dip. di Astronomia e Scienza dello Spazio, Univ. di Firenze, Largo E. Fermi 3, 50125 Firenze, Italy; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA), AC(Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, CNRS - Université Paris Sud, Bât. 121, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France)
Publication:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 700, Issue 1, pp. L39-L42 (2009). (ApJL Homepage)
Publication Date:
07/2009
Origin:
IOP
Astronomy Keywords:
MHD, solar wind, turbulence, waves
DOI:
10.1088/0004-637X/700/1/L39
Bibliographic Code:
2009ApJ...700L..39V

Abstract

We study the formation and evolution of a turbulent spectrum of Alfvén waves driven by reflection off the solar wind density gradients, starting from the coronal base up to 17 solar radii, well beyond the Alfvénic critical point. The background solar wind is assigned and two-dimensional shell models are used to describe nonlinear interactions. We find that the turbulent spectra are influenced by the nature of the reflected waves. Close to the base, these give rise to a flatter and steeper spectrum for the outgoing and reflected waves, respectively. At higher heliocentric distance both spectra evolve toward an asymptotic Kolmogorov spectrum. The turbulent dissipation is found to account for at least half of the heating required to sustain the background imposed solar wind and its shape is found to be determined by the reflection-determined turbulent heating below 1.5 solar radii. Therefore, reflection and reflection-driven turbulence are shown to play a key role in the acceleration of the fast solar wind and origin of the turbulent spectrum found at 0.3 AU in the heliosphere.
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