A Majority of Solar Wind Intervals Support Ion-Driven Instabilities

Abstract

We perform a statistical assessment of solar wind stability at 1 AU against ion sources of free energy using Nyquist's instability criterion. In contrast to typically employed threshold models which consider a single free-energy source, this method includes the effects of proton and He${}^{2+}$ temperature anisotropy with respect to the background magnetic field as well as relative drifts between the proton core, proton beam, and He${}^{2+}$ components on stability. Of 309 randomly selected spectra from the Wind spacecraft, $53.7\%$ are unstable when the ion components are modeled as drifting bi-Maxwellians; only $4.5\%$ of the spectra are unstable to long-wavelength instabilities. A majority of the instabilities occur for spectra where a proton beam is resolved. Nearly all observed instabilities have growth rates $\gamma$ slower than instrumental and ion-kinetic-scale timescales. Unstable spectra are associated with relatively-large He${}^{2+}$ drift speeds and/or a departure of the core proton temperature from isotropy; other parametric dependencies of unstable spectra are also identified.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted in Physical Review Letters; fixed typos in version 2

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