Non-thermal solar wind heating by supra-thermal ions

✍ Scribed by H. J. Fahr

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 786 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0938
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00156188

✦ Synopsis

The effect of a new energy source due to energies transferred from supra-thermal secondary ions on the temperature profile of the solar wind has been considered. For this purpose a solution of a tri-fluid model of the solar wind including solar electrons, protons, and c~-particles, and starting with the botmdary conditions of Hartle and Barnes at 0.5 AU is given. On the base of the assumption that suprathermal He+-ions which have four times the temperature of suprathermal protons are predominantly coupled to solar co-particles by Alfv6n waves, it is shown that the temperature T~ of solar c~-particles should be appreciably higher than those Tp of solar protons beyond the orbit of the Earth. For 1 AU a temperature excess T~ over Tp according to that which has been found in some solar wind ion" spectrograms can only be explained for a small part of the orbit of the earth which is inside the cone of enhanced helium densities. Around 1 AU the temperatures T~ and Tp are found to decrease much slighter with solar distance than given in the two-fluid model of Hartle and Barnes. Beyond 1.7 and 2.2 AU the temperatures T~ and T~ even start increasing with solar distance and come up to about 105 at about 10 AU. These predictions should lend some support to future temperature measurements with deep-space probes reaching Solar distances of some AU. * Forschungsberichte des Astronomischen Institutes, Bonn, 72-10.