Electron-Driven Instabilities in the Solar Wind

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Authors
Verscharen, D.
Chandran, B.D.G.
Boella, E.
Halekas, J.
Innocenti, M.E.
Jagarlamudi, V.K.
Micera, A.
Pierrard, V.
Štverák, Š.
Vasko, I.Y.
Velli, M.
Whittlesey, P.L.
Discipline
Physical sciences
Subject
solar wind
plasma
instabilities
electrons
temperature anisotropy
heat flux
quasi-linear theory
Audience
Scientific
Date
2022Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
The electrons are an essential particle species in the solar wind. They often exhibit non-equilibrium features in their velocity distribution function. These include temperature anisotropies, tails (kurtosis), and reflectional asymmetries (skewness), which contribute a significant heat flux to the solar wind. If these non-equilibrium features are sufficiently strong, they drive kinetic micro-instabilities. We develop a semi-graphical framework based on the equations of quasi-linear theory to describe electron-driven instabilities in the solar wind. We apply our framework to resonant instabilities driven by temperature anisotropies. These include the electron whistler anisotropy instability and the propagating electron firehose instability. We then describe resonant instabilities driven by reflectional asymmetries in the electron distribution function. These include the electron/ion-acoustic, kinetic Alfvén heat-flux, Langmuir, electron-beam, electron/ion-cyclotron, electron/electron-acoustic, whistler heat-flux, oblique fast-magnetosonic/whistler, lower-hybrid fan, and electron-deficit whistler instability. We briefly comment on non-resonant instabilities driven by electron temperature anisotropies such as the mirror-mode and the non-propagating firehose instability. We conclude our review with a list of open research topics in the field of electron-driven instabilities in the solar wind.
Citation
Verscharen, D.; Chandran, B.D.G.; Boella, E.; Halekas, J.; Innocenti, M.E.; Jagarlamudi, V.K.; Micera, A.; Pierrard, V.; Štverák, Š.; Vasko, I.Y.; Velli, M.; Whittlesey, P.L. (2022). Electron-Driven Instabilities in the Solar Wind. , Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, Vol. 9, A951628, DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2022.951628.Identifiers
scopus:
Type
Article
Peer-Review
Yes
Language
eng