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Reflection-driven turbulence in the super-Alfv\'enic solar wind by Meyrand, Romain; Squire, Jonathan; Mallet, Alfred; Chandran, Benjamin D. G. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Reflection-driven turbulence in the super-Alfv\'enic solar wind about?

In magnetized, stratified astrophysical environments such as the Sun's corona and solar wind, Alfv\'enic fluctuations ''reflect'' from background gradients, enabling nonlinear interactions and thus dissipation of their energy into heat. This process, termed ''reflection-driven turbulence,'' is thought to play a crucial role in coronal heating and solar-wind acceleration, explaining a range of observational correlations and constraints. Building on previous works focused on the inner heliosphere, here we study the basic physics of reflection-driven turbulence using reduced magnetohydrodynamics in an expanding box -- the simplest model that can capture the local turbulent plasma dynamics in the super-Alfv\'enic solar wind. Although idealized, our high-resolution simulations and simple theory reveal a rich phenomenology that is consistent with a diverse range of observations. Outwards-propagating fluctuations, which initially have high imbalance, decay nonlinearly to heat the plasma, becoming more balanced and magnetically dominated. Despite the high imbalance, the turbulence is strong because Els\"asser collisions are suppressed by reflection, leading to ''anomalous coherence'' betwe

Author

Meyrand, Romain; Squire, Jonathan; Mallet, Alfred; Chandran, Benjamin D. G.

Published

2023

Language

EN