Observations of heating along intermittent structures in the inner heliosphere from PSP data

Abstract

The solar wind proton temperature at 1-au has been found to be correlated with small-scale intermittent magnetic structures, i.e., regions with enhanced temperature are associated with coherent structures such as current sheets. Using Parker Solar Probe data from the first encounter, we study this association using measurements of radial proton temperature, employing the Partial Variance of Increments (PVI) technique to identify intermittent magnetic structures. We observe that the probability density functions of high-PVI events have higher median temperatures than those with lower PVI, The regions in space where PVI peaks were also locations that had enhanced temperatures when compared with similar regions suggesting a heating mechanism in the young solar wind that is associated with intermittency developed by a nonlinear turbulent cascade.n the immediate vicinity.

6 pages, 3 figures, part of ApJ special issue for PSP

References in corpus (9)

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Parker Solar Probe: Four Years of Discoveries at Solar Cycle Minimum
• Clustering of Intermittent Magnetic and Flow Structures near Parker Solar Probe's First Perihelion -- A Partial-Variance-of-Increments Analysis
• Magnetic field intermittency in the solar wind: PSP and SolO observations ranging from the Alfven region out to 1 AU
• Statistical analysis of intermittency and its association with proton heating in the near Sun environment
• The Structure and Origin of Switchbacks: Parker Solar Probe Observations
• Conditions for proton temperature anisotropy to drive instabilities in the solar wind
• Preferential Proton over Electron heating from coherent structures during the first perihelion of Parker Solar Probe
• Association of intermittency with electron heating in the near-Sun solar wind
• Observation of Turbulent Magnetohydrodynamic Cascade in the Jovian Magnetosheath
• Temperature anisotropy instabilities driven by intermittent velocity shears in the solar wind