Self Consistent Models of the Solar Wind

Abstract

The origins of the hot solar corona and the supersonically expanding solar wind are still the subject of much debate. This paper summarizes some of the essential ingredients of realistic and self-consistent models of solar wind acceleration. It also outlines the major issues in the recent debate over what physical processes dominate the mass, momentum, and energy balance in the accelerating wind. A key obstacle in the way of producing realistic simulations of the Sun-heliosphere system is the lack of a physically motivated way of specifying the coronal heating rate. Recent models that assume the energy comes from Alfven waves that are partially reflected, and then dissipated by magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, have been found to reproduce many of the observed features of the solar wind. This paper discusses results from these models, including detailed comparisons with measured plasma properties as a function of solar wind speed. Some suggestions are also given for future work that could answer the many remaining questions about coronal heating and solar wind acceleration.

12 pages, 1 figure, Space Science Reviews, in press (special issue corresponding to ISSI workshop on Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration, Bern, Switzerland, January 25-29, 2010)

References in corpus (12)

• Self-consistent Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration from Anisotropic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
• Time-Distance Seismology of the Solar Corona with CoMP
• A turbulence-driven model for heating and acceleration of the fast wind in coronal holes
• Empirical Constraints on Proton and Electron Heating in the Fast Solar Wind
• Electron and proton heating by solar wind turbulence
• Alfven Wave Reflection and Turbulent Heating in the Solar Wind from 1 Solar Radius to 1 AU: an Analytical Treatment
• Properties of Magneto-Hydrodynamic Waves in the Solar Photosphere with Hinode
• Nonlinear propagation of Alfven waves driven by observed photospheric motions: Application to the coronal heating and spicule formation
• Coronal hole boundaries evolution at small scales: II. XRT view Can small-scale outflows at CHBs be a source of the slow solar wind?
• Turbulence in the sub-Alfvénic solar wind driven by reflection of low-frequency Alfvén waves
• An Efficient Approximation of the Coronal Heating Rate for Use in Global Sun-Heliosphere Simulations
• Extended Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration Over the Solar Cycle

Cited by in corpus (32)

• Advances in Observing Various Coronal EUV Waves in the SDO Era and Their Seismological Applications (Invited Review)
• New Observational Constraints on the Winds of M Dwarf Stars
• First direct measurements of transverse waves in solar polar plumes using SDO/AIA
• A global view of velocity fluctuations in the corona below 1.3 $R_{\odot }$ with CoMP
• Three-dimensional simulation of the fast solar wind driven by compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
• Structured Slow Solar Wind Variability: Streamer-blob Flux Ropes and Torsional Alfvén Waves
• Waves in Solar Coronal Loops
• The Radial Evolution of the Solar Wind as Organized by Electron Distribution Parameters
• Strong Preferential Ion Heating is Limited to within the Solar Alfven Surface
• Magnetic braking of Sun-like and low-mass stars: Dependence on coronal temperature
• Minimalist coupled evolution model for stellar x-ray activity, rotation, mass loss, and magnetic field
• Quantifying the Energy Budget in the Solar Wind from 13.3-100 Solar Radii
• 2D solar wind speeds from 6 to 26 solar radii in solar cycle 24 by using Fourier filtering
• Formation and Reconnection of Three-dimensional Current Sheets with a Guide Field in the Solar Corona
• Linking the Sun to the Heliosphere Using Composition Data and Modelling. A Test Case with a Coronal Jet
• Anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence driven by parametric decay instability: the onset of phase mixing and Alfvén wave turbulence
• Structures in the outer solar atmosphere
• The Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona (BITSE): Mission Description and Preliminary Results
• Properties of Streamer Wave Events Observed During the STEREO Era
• Modeling Solar Wind Variations over an 11-yr Cycle with Alfvén Wave Dissipation: a Parameter Study
• Is It Small-scale Weak Magnetic Activity That Effectively Heats the Upper Solar Atmosphere?
• Numerical quantification of the wind properties of cool main sequence stars
• The S-Web Origin of Composition Enhancement in the Slow-to-Moderate Speed Solar Wind
• Particle-in-cell simulations of Alfvén wave parametric decay in a low-beta plasma
• A Comprehensive Simulation of Solar Wind Formation from the Solar Interior: Significant Cross-field Energy Transport by Interchange Reconnection near the Sun
• Interfacing MHD Single Fluid and Kinetic Exospheric Solar Wind Models and Comparing Their Energetics
• Characteristics of solar wind rotation
• On the estimation of solar wind velocity under varying solar activity conditions using Akatsuki measurements
• Density fluctuation in the solar corona and solar wind: A comparative analysis of radio-occultation observations and magnetohydrodynamic simulation
• Solar Atmospheric Magnetic Energy Coupling: Broad Plasma Conditions and Spectrum Regimes
• The effect of thermal misbalance on magnetohydrodynamic modes in coronal magnetic cylinders
• Testing the Alfvén-wave model of the solar wind with interplanetary scintillation