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Hauptverfasser: Montagud-Camps, Victor, Grappin, Roland, Verdini, Andrea
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01276
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author Montagud-Camps, Victor
Grappin, Roland
Verdini, Andrea
author_facet Montagud-Camps, Victor
Grappin, Roland
Verdini, Andrea
contents The heating of the solar wind is a key to understand its dynamics and acceleration process. The observed radial decrease of proton temperature in the solar wind is slow compared to the adiabatic prediction and it is thought to be caused by turbulent dissipation. To generate the observed 1/R decrease, the dissipation rate has to reach a specific level which varies in turn with temperature, wind speed, and heliocentric distance. We want to prove that MHD turbulent simulations can lead to the 1/R profile. We consider here the slow solar wind, characterized by a quasi-2D spectral anisotropy. We use the EBM (expanding box model) equations, which incorporate into 3D MHD equations the expansion due to the mean radial wind, allowing to follow the plasma evolution between 0.2 and 1 AU. We vary the initial parameters which are: Mach number, expansion parameter, plasma beta, and properties of the energy spectrum as the spectral range and slope. Assuming turbulence starts at 0.2 AU with a Mach number equal to unity, with a 3D spectrum mainly perpendicular to the mean field, we find radial temperature profiles close to 1/R in average. This is done at the price of limiting the initial spectral extent, corresponding to the small number of modes in the inertial range available, due to the modest Reynolds number reachable with high Mach numbers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_01276
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Turbulent Heating between 0.2 and 1 au: A Numerical Study
Montagud-Camps, Victor
Grappin, Roland
Verdini, Andrea
Space Physics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Plasma Physics
The heating of the solar wind is a key to understand its dynamics and acceleration process. The observed radial decrease of proton temperature in the solar wind is slow compared to the adiabatic prediction and it is thought to be caused by turbulent dissipation. To generate the observed 1/R decrease, the dissipation rate has to reach a specific level which varies in turn with temperature, wind speed, and heliocentric distance. We want to prove that MHD turbulent simulations can lead to the 1/R profile. We consider here the slow solar wind, characterized by a quasi-2D spectral anisotropy. We use the EBM (expanding box model) equations, which incorporate into 3D MHD equations the expansion due to the mean radial wind, allowing to follow the plasma evolution between 0.2 and 1 AU. We vary the initial parameters which are: Mach number, expansion parameter, plasma beta, and properties of the energy spectrum as the spectral range and slope. Assuming turbulence starts at 0.2 AU with a Mach number equal to unity, with a 3D spectrum mainly perpendicular to the mean field, we find radial temperature profiles close to 1/R in average. This is done at the price of limiting the initial spectral extent, corresponding to the small number of modes in the inertial range available, due to the modest Reynolds number reachable with high Mach numbers.
title Turbulent Heating between 0.2 and 1 au: A Numerical Study
topic Space Physics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Plasma Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01276