Dominance of 2-Minute Oscillations near the Alfvén Surface

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Huang, Zesen, Velli, Marco, Shi, Chen, Zhu, Yingjie, Chandran, B. D. G., Bowen, Trevor, Réville, Victor, Huang, Jia, Hou, Chuanpeng, Sioulas, Nikos, Liu, Mingzhe, Pulupa, Marc, Huang, Sheng, Bale, Stuart D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Huang, Zesen
Velli, Marco
Shi, Chen
Zhu, Yingjie
Chandran, B. D. G.
Bowen, Trevor
Réville, Victor
Huang, Jia
Hou, Chuanpeng
Sioulas, Nikos
Liu, Mingzhe
Pulupa, Marc
Huang, Sheng
Bale, Stuart D.
author_facet Huang, Zesen
Velli, Marco
Shi, Chen
Zhu, Yingjie
Chandran, B. D. G.
Bowen, Trevor
Réville, Victor
Huang, Jia
Hou, Chuanpeng
Sioulas, Nikos
Liu, Mingzhe
Pulupa, Marc
Huang, Sheng
Bale, Stuart D.
contents Alfvén waves, considered one of the primary candidates for heating and accelerating the fast solar wind, are ubiquitous in spacecraft observations, yet their origin remains elusive. In this study, we analyze data from the first 19 encounters of the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and report dominance of 2-minute oscillations near the Alfvén surface. The frequency-rectified trace magnetic power spectral density (PSD) of these oscillations indicates that the fluctuation energy is concentrated around 2 minutes for the ``youngest'' solar wind. Further analysis using wavelet spectrograms reveals that these oscillations primarily consist of outward-propagating, spherically polarized Alfvén wave bursts. Through Doppler analysis, we show that the wave frequency observed in the spacecraft frame can be mapped directly to the launch frequency at the base of the corona, where previous studies have identified a distinct peak around 2 minutes ($\sim 8$ mHz) in the spectrum of swaying motions of coronal structures observed by SDO AIA. These findings strongly suggest that the Alfvén waves originate from the solar atmosphere. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the PSD deformation beyond the Alfvén surface supports the idea of dynamic formation of the otherwise absent $1/f$ range in the solar wind turbulence spectrum.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_15967
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dominance of 2-Minute Oscillations near the Alfvén Surface
Huang, Zesen
Velli, Marco
Shi, Chen
Zhu, Yingjie
Chandran, B. D. G.
Bowen, Trevor
Réville, Victor
Huang, Jia
Hou, Chuanpeng
Sioulas, Nikos
Liu, Mingzhe
Pulupa, Marc
Huang, Sheng
Bale, Stuart D.
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Plasma Physics
Space Physics
Alfvén waves, considered one of the primary candidates for heating and accelerating the fast solar wind, are ubiquitous in spacecraft observations, yet their origin remains elusive. In this study, we analyze data from the first 19 encounters of the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and report dominance of 2-minute oscillations near the Alfvén surface. The frequency-rectified trace magnetic power spectral density (PSD) of these oscillations indicates that the fluctuation energy is concentrated around 2 minutes for the ``youngest'' solar wind. Further analysis using wavelet spectrograms reveals that these oscillations primarily consist of outward-propagating, spherically polarized Alfvén wave bursts. Through Doppler analysis, we show that the wave frequency observed in the spacecraft frame can be mapped directly to the launch frequency at the base of the corona, where previous studies have identified a distinct peak around 2 minutes ($\sim 8$ mHz) in the spectrum of swaying motions of coronal structures observed by SDO AIA. These findings strongly suggest that the Alfvén waves originate from the solar atmosphere. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the PSD deformation beyond the Alfvén surface supports the idea of dynamic formation of the otherwise absent $1/f$ range in the solar wind turbulence spectrum.
title Dominance of 2-Minute Oscillations near the Alfvén Surface
topic Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Plasma Physics
Space Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15967