Quasilinear Approach of the Whistler Heat-Flux Instability in the Solar Wind

Abstract

The hot beaming (or strahl) electrons responsible for the main electron heat-flux in the solar wind are believed to be self-regulated by the electromagnetic beaming instabilities, also known as the heat-flux instabilities. Here we report the first quasi-linear theoretical approach of the whistler unstable branch able to characterize the long-term saturation of the instability as well as the relaxation of the electron velocity distributions. The instability saturation is not solely determined by the drift velocities, which undergo only a minor relaxation, but mainly from a concurrent interaction of electrons with whistlers that induces (opposite) temperature anisotropies of the core and beam populations and reduces the effective anisotropy. These results might be able to (i) explain the low intensity of the whistler heat-flux fluctuations in the solar wind (although other explanations remain possible and need further investigation), and (ii) confirm a reduced effectiveness of these fluctuations in the relaxation and isotropization of the electron strahl and in the regulation of the electron heat-flux.

arXiv commentaccepted for publication MNRAS

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• On quasi-parallel whistler waves in the solar wind
• Electron energy partition across interplanetary shocks: III. Analysis
• Mapping for nonlinear electron interaction with whistler-mode waves
• Quasilinear approach of the cumulative whistler instability in fast solar winds: Constraints of electron temperature anisotropy
• Particle-in-cell simulations of the whistler heat-flux instability in the solar wind conditions
• Electron Temperature Anisotropy and Electron Beam Constraints From Electron Kinetic Instabilities in the Solar Wind
• Whistler instabilities from the interplay of electron anisotropies in space plasmas: A quasilinear approach
• Electromagnetic Ion-Ion Instabilities in Space Plasmas: Effects of Suprathermal Populations
• Quantifying the diffusion of suprathermal electrons by whistler waves between 0.2 and 1 AU with Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe
• On the interplay of solar wind proton and electron instabilities: Linear and quasi-linear approaches
• On application of stochastic differential equations for simulation of nonlinear wave-particle resonant interactions
• Whistler waves in the young solar wind: statistics of amplitude and propagation direction from Parker Solar Probe Encounters 1-11
• Heat-flux Instabilities of Regularized Kappa Distributed Strahl Electrons Resolved with ALPS
• On a transitional regime of electron resonant interaction with whistler-mode waves in inhomogeneous space plasma