The role of compressibility in solar wind plasma turbulence

Abstract

Incompressible Magnetohydrodynamics is often assumed to describe solar wind turbulence. We use extended self similarity to reveal scaling in structure functions of density fluctuations in the solar wind. Obtained scaling is then compared with that found in the inertial range of quantities identified as passive scalars in other turbulent systems. We find that these are not coincident. This implies that either solar wind turbulence is compressible, or that straightforward comparison of structure functions does not adequately capture its inertial range properties.

arXiv comment4 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (7)

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• Compressible Sub-Alfvenic MHD turbulence in Low-beta Plasmas
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• Intermittency, scaling and the Fokker-Planck approach to fluctuations of the solar wind bulk plasma parameters as seen by the WIND spacecraft
• Intermittency and the passive nature of the magnitude of the magnetic field

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• Constraining Low-Frequency Alfvenic Turbulence in the Solar Wind Using Density Fluctuation Measurements
• Scaling of compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the fast solar wind
• Fluidization of collisionless plasma turbulence
• Density Fluctuations Associated with Turbulence and Waves: First Observations by Solar Orbiter
• Fluctuation-dissipation relations for a plasma-kinetic Langevin equation
• Kolmogorov and Irosnikov-Kraichnan scaling in the anisotropic turbulent solar wind
• Radial evolution of intermittency of density fluctuations in the fast solar wind
• Turbulent characteristics in the intensity fluctuations of a solar quiescent prominence observed by the \textit{Hinode} Solar Optical Telescope
• On the intermittent character of interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations
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• A study of density modulation index in the inner heliospheric solar wind during solar cycle 23
• Phase mixing and the 1/f spectrum in the solar wind
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• Turbulent density fluctuations and proton heating rate in the solar wind from 9-20~R_{\odot}
• Generalized similarity in finite range solar wind magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
• Sub-ion scale Compressive Turbulence in the Solar wind: MMS spacecraft potential observations
• Statistical Properties of three-dimensional Hall Magnetohydrodynamics Turbulence
• An improved technique for measuring plasma density to high frequencies on the Parker Solar Probe
• Statistical study of electron density turbulence and ion-cyclotron waves in the inner heliosphere: Solar Orbiter observations