Weak compressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the solar corona

This Letter presents a calculation of the power spectra of weakly turbulent Alfvén waves and fast magnetosonic waves ("fast waves") in low- plasmas. It is shown that three-wave interactions transfer energy to high-frequency fast waves and, to a lesser extent, high-frequency Alfvén waves. High-frequency waves produced by MHD turbulence are a promising explanation for the anisotropic heating of minor ions in the solar corona.     

Coexistence of self-organized criticality and intermittent turbulence in the solar corona

An extended data set of extreme ultraviolet images of the solar corona provided by the SOHO spacecraft is analyzed using statistical methods common to studies of self-organized criticality (SOC) and intermittent turbulence (IT). The data exhibit simultaneous hallmarks of both regimes: namely, power-law avalanche statistics as well as multiscaling of structure functions for spatial activity. This implies that both SOC and IT may be manifestations of a single complex dynamical process entangling avalanches of magnetic energy dissipation with turbulent particle flows.     

An observational picture of solar-wind MHD turbulence

Summary A review of the available information on the MHD fluctuations in the solar wind is given. The most general properties of the picture which derives from the satellite measurements are discussed. The very important result which seems to appear is the fact that the low-frequency MHD fluctuations are characteristic of a turbulent state. Clearly this state cannot be represented by the usual models based on the hypothesis of the presence of simple waves in the solar wind. It is then rather natural to suppose that these observational data should be usefully analysed only through the theoretical methods developed to study the strong MHD turbulence. Moreover, this analysis is rather stimulating since the solar wind offers us one of the rare possibilities to have observational tests of the theoretical models of strong MHD turbulence.     

The inertial range spectrum for a caviton model of Langmuir turbulence

We calculate the spectral index for the Langmuir turbulence spectrum, assuming that the bulk of the energy is contained within a set of strongly flattened, non-interacting cavitons which are subject to supersonic collapse, which preserves the plasmon number in the caviton, as well as an intability, also plasmon conserving, causing splitting. The spectral index, which in the absence of splitting is $\text{-5}\text{2}$, increases when there is splitting, corresponding to a considerable flattening of the spectrum in the inertial range; if the splitting leads to two new cavitons, the resulting index is -1.73.     

Spatial correlation of solar-wind turbulence from two-point measurements

Interplanetary turbulence, the best studied case of low frequency plasma turbulence, is the only directly quantified instance of astrophysical turbulence. Here, magnetic field correlation analysis, using for the first time only proper two-point, single time measurements, provides a key step in unraveling the space-time structure of interplanetary turbulence. Simultaneous magnetic field data from the Wind, ACE, and Cluster spacecraft are analyzed to determine the correlation (outer) scale, and the Taylor microscale near Earth's orbit.     

Influence of the solar-wind magnetic field on the magnetosheath turbulence behind the bow shock

The experiment Sura–-WIND (1996–1997) on radio-raying of geodisturbed solar-wind region is interpreted in terms of modern knowledge of an interaction between the magnetized solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. Characteristics of the scattered signal at 9 MHz, determined by a plasma turbulence level with scales about 100 km, are statistically related to in situ measurements of solar wind parameters such as plasma density and the orientation and magnitude of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) onboard WIND spacecraft. The dependence of the scintillation index of the detected scattered signal, characterising the average turbulence level of the Earth's magnetosheath behind the bow shock, on the IMF orientation and magnitude is revealed. To verify the relation obtained, modern nonlinear correlation techniques based on the theory of artificial neural networks (ANN) are applied. The results obtained using a three-layer ANN with error backpropagation confirm an essential IMF influence on the plasma turbulence in the magnetosheath.     

Local equilibrium in the inertial layer of wall bounded turbulence

Recently Brouwers [Dissipation equals production in the log layer of wall-induced turbulence. Phys Fluids. 2007;19:101702] carried out an asymptotic analysis using the RANS based turbulence energy transport equation and showed that the energy dissipation equals its production in the inertial layer of wall-induced turbulence. Assuming log-law profile to the mean velocity, pressure, viscous and energy diffusion terms were estimated and shown to be negligibly small compared to the production and dissipation terms thereby proving local equilibrium. However, based on scale relations Tennekes and Lumley [A first course in turbulence. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press; 1994] have already established that the pressure and energy diffusion terms appearing in the energy transport equation are of the same order of magnitude especially in the inertial layer thus leading to a contradiction. Hence we have attempted here to re-estimate the turbulence energy budgets in a different way by invoking the Kolomogrov’s similarity hypotheses and (4/5)th law. Magnitudes of pressure and energy diffusion terms are determined explicitly and found to match well with the DNS data. The striking point of the present analysis is that no prior assumption is enforced on the mean velocity profile. Further, two main advantages of the present study are, (i) reasonable estimates for both the diffusion terms are obtained explicitly that were unavailable before and (ii) these estimates help us to tweak the production/dissipation terms to reflect the influence of turbulent diffusion mechanisms without the necessity to model them as in the case of elliptic relaxation and Reynold stress RANS models.     

Nonaxisymmetric anisotropy of solar wind turbulence

A key prediction of turbulence theories is frame-invariance, and in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, axisymmetry of fluctuations with respect to the background magnetic field. Paradoxically the power in fluctuations in the turbulent solar wind are observed to be ordered with respect to the bulk macroscopic flow as well as the background magnetic field. Here, nonaxisymmetry across the inertial and dissipation ranges is quantified using in situ observations from Cluster. The observed inertial range nonaxisymmetry is reproduced by a "fly through" sampling of a direct numerical simulation of MHD turbulence. Furthermore, fly through sampling of a linear superposition of transverse waves with axisymmetric fluctuations generates the trend in nonaxisymmetry with power spectral exponent. The observed nonaxisymmetric anisotropy may thus simply arise as a sampling effect related to Taylor's hypothesis and is not related to the plasma dynamics itself.     

Photometry of the solar corona of March 7, 1970

Isophotes obtained by equidensitometry techniques from four exposures of the March 7, 1970 corona are used for derivation of intensity distributions along the equator, poles, streamers and dark ‘gaps’ in the visible corona. The distributions differ from the van de Hulst curves for a maximum corona. The Kodaikanal measures agree well with the NRL measures of the outer corona made from a rocket coronagraph and together provide data from 1·2R_⊙ to 8·0R_⊙ along the solar equator. Radial intensity gradients for different position angles and the Ludendorff parameters obtained, characterize this corona as typical of the solar maximum.     

Measuring magnetic fields in the solar corona by radio emissions

Some ways of identifying magnetic fields in the solar corona using the observed properties of solar radio emissions are discussed. Examples are given for measuring the magnetic field in the active region atmosphere (in the chromosphere-corona transition region) based on spectral observations of microwave radiation from local sources associated with sunspots. Ways of determining the magnetic field in hot coronal loops in the case of recording cyclotron lines in solar microwave radiation are considered. It is shown that polarization of the second harmonic in Type III bursts testifies to a magnetic field on the track of electrons accelerated in the flare region and moving outward.Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhnii Novgorod. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 37, No. 7, pp. 821–835, July, 1994.     

Observations of nonlinear turbulence in the upstream solar wind

Summary Plasma, electric-field and magnetic-field data from several experiments on board the spacecraft ISEE 1 and 2 have been analysed in the interaction region upstream of the Earth's bow shock. Upstream waves which are known to be associated with diffuse distributions of backstreaming protons are shown to correlate also with variability in the distribution of the incoming solar-wind protons. Both phenomena are also clearly connected with the presence of enhanced electric-field turbulence. On the basis of these relations, a preliminary discussion can be given of the complex nonlinear plasma processes occurring in the foreshock region.     

Impact of subgrid fluid turbulence on inertial particles subject to gravity

Two-phase turbulent flows with the dispersed phase in the form of small, spherical particles are increasingly often computed with the large-eddy simulation (LES) of the carrier fluid phase, coupled to the Lagrangian tracking of particles. To enable further model development for LES with inertial particles subject to gravity, we consider direct numerical simulations of homogeneous isotropic turbulence with a large-scale forcing. Simulation results, both without filtering and in the a priori LES setting, are reported and discussed. A full (i.e. a posteriori) LES is also performed with the spectral eddy viscosity. Effects of gravity on the dispersed phase include changes in the average settling velocity due to preferential sweeping, impact on the radial distribution function and radial relative velocity, as well as direction-dependent modification of the particle velocity variance. The filtering of the fluid velocity, performed in spectral space, is shown to have a non-trivial impact on these quantities.     

On the velocity and dissipation signature of vortex tubes in isotropic turbulence

The properties of vortex tubes are extracted and analyzed from a DNS database at various Re_λ, with the objective to characterize the associated distributions of induced velocity and kinetic energy dissipation. The induced velocity exhibits an inverse power-law scaling in the far field, different from Burgers’ r⁻¹ scaling, supporting the interpretation that tubes are the remnants of vortex sheets after roll-up, and suggesting a possible link with the Kolmogorov k^−5/3 spectral scaling. The energy dissipation signature is characterized by a local maximum near the edge of the vortex core, and an absolute peak at its center, which can be tentatively explained appealing to the occurrence of a bi-axial configuration of the strain-rate tensor.     

Toward a theory of the double plasma resonance in the solar corona

Specific features of the double plasma resonance effect in a magnetized plasma of the solar corona are discussed. The effect consists in enhanced generation of plasma waves in the regions where the upper hybrid frequency coincides with electron gyrofrequency harmonics. It is widely used for interpretation of a fine structure in solar radio emission spectrum in the form of parallel drifting quasi-harmonic stripes of enhanced radiation intensity (zebra pattern). It is shown that the plasma-wave growth rate increases due to both dispersion properties of plasma waves, which are determined by the equilibrium plasma component, and electrons which are non-equilibrium with respect to the velocities transverse to the magnetic field. Special attention is given to an incorrect consideration of the double plasma resonance effect in some papers. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 95–108, February 2009.     

Universality hypothesis for the small wave-number range of decaying turbulence

In the frame of a model of the decaying, locally homogeneous isotropically developed turbulence the energy spectrum is investigated in energy-containing range. The self-similar solution of energy spectral balance equation has been found.This work was supported by the Slovak Grant Agency for Science (grant No. 2/550/93), by the Fundamental Research Russian Fund and by the International Scientific Fund (grant No. R-63000).