Aims. To determine the effect of the Hall term in the generalised Ohm's law on the damping and phase mixing of Alfven waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies in uniform and non-uniform equilibrium plasmas. Methods. Wave damping in a uniform plasma is treated analytically, whilst a Lagrangian remap code (Lare2d) is used to study Hall effects on damping and phase mixing in the presence of an equilibrium density gradient. Results. The magnetic energy associated with an initially Gaussian field perturbation in a uniform resistive plasma is shown to decay algebraically at a rate that is unaffected by the Hall term to leading order in k^2di^2 where k is wavenumber and di is ion skin depth. A similar algebraic decay law applies to whistler perturbations in the limit k^2di^2>>1. In a non-uniform plasma it is found that the spatially-integrated damping rate due to phase mixing is lower in Hall MHD than it is in MHD, but the reduction in the damping rate, which can be attributed to the effects of wave dispersion, tends to zero in both the weak and strong phase mixing limits.
Using one-dimensional hybrid expanding box model we investigate properties of the solar wind in the outer heliosphere. We assume a proton-electron plasma with a strictly transverse ambient magnetic field and, beside the expansion, we take into account influence of a continuous injection of cold pick-up protons through the charge-exchange process between the solar wind protons and hydrogen of interstellar origin. The injected cold pick-up protons form a ring distribution function that rapidly becomes unstable and generate Alfvén cyclotron waves. The Alfvén cyclotron waves scatter pick-up proton…
We investigate off-limb active region and quiet Sun corona using spectroscopic data. Active region is clearly visible in several spectral lines formed in the temperature range of 1.1--2.8 MK. We derive electron number density using line ratio method, and non-thermal velocity in the off-limb region up to the distance of 140 Mm. We compare density scale heights derived from several spectral line pairs with expected scale heights as per hydrostatic equilibrium model. Using several isolated and unblended spectral line profiles, we estimate non-thermal velocities in active region and quiet Sun. Non…
The Alfvén wave energy flux in the corona can be explored using the electron density and velocity amplitude of the waves. The velocity amplitude of Alfvén waves can be obtained from the non-thermal velocity of the spectral line profiles. Previous calculations of the Alfvén wave energy flux with height in active regions and polar coronal holes have provided evidence for the damping of Alfvén waves with height. We present off-limb Hinode EUV imaging spectrometer (EIS) observations of a long coronal loop up to 1.4~R$_\odot$. We have obtained the electron density along the loop and found the loop …
Alfvénic turbulent cascade perpendicular and parallel to the background magnetic field is studied accounting for anisotropic dispersive effects and turbulent intermittency. The perpendicular dispersion and intermittency make the perpendicular-wavenumber magnetic spectra steeper and speed up production of high ion-cyclotron frequencies by the turbulent cascade. On the contrary, the parallel dispersion makes the spectra flatter and decelerate the frequency cascade above the ion-cyclotron frequency. Competition of the above factors results in spectral indices distributed in the interval [-2,-3], …
We apply field-particle correlations -- a technique that tracks the time-averaged velocity-space structure of the energy density transfer rate between electromagnetic fields and plasma particles -- to data drawn from a hybrid Vlasov-Maxwell simulation of Alfvén Ion-Cyclotron turbulence. Energy transfer in this system is expected to include both Landau and cyclotron wave-particle resonances, unlike previous systems to which the field-particle correlation technique has been applied. In this simulation, the energy transfer rate mediated by the parallel electric field $E_\parallel$ comprises appro…
Line-driven stellar winds from massive (OB) stars are subject to a strong line-deshadowing instability. Recently, spectropolarimetric surveys have collected ample evidence that a subset of Galactic massive stars hosts strong surface magnetic fields. We investigate here the propagation and stability of magneto-radiative waves in such a magnetised, line-driven wind. Our analytic, linear stability analysis includes line-scattering from the stellar radiation, and accounts for both radial and non-radial perturbations. We establish a bridging law for arbitrary perturbation wavelength after which we …
The collisionless dissipation of anisotropic Alfvénic turbulence is a promising candidate to solve the solar wind heating problem. Extensive studies examined the kinetic properties of Alfvén waves in simple Maxwellian or bi-Maxwellian plasmas. However, the observed electron velocity distribution functions in the solar wind are more complex. In this study, we analyze the properties of kinetic Alfvén waves in a plasma with two drifting electron populations. We numerically solve the linearized Maxwell-Vlasov equations and find that the damping rate and the proton-electron energy partition for kin…
Context: This paper investigates the effectiveness of phase mixing as a coronal heating mechanism. A key quantity is the wave damping rate, $γ$, defined as the ratio of the heating rate to the wave energy. Aims: We investigate whether or not laminar phase-mixed Alfvén waves can have a large enough value of $γ$ to heat the corona. We also investigate the degree to which the $γ$ of standing Alfvén waves which have reached steady-state can be approximated with a relatively simple equation. Further foci of this study are the cause of the reduction of $γ$ in response to leakage of waves out of a lo…
A generation mechanism of super Alfvénic (SPA) waves in multi-ion species plasma is proposed and the associated heavy ion acceleration process is discussed. The SPA waves are thought to play important roles in particle acceleration since they have large wave electric field because of their high phase velocity. It is demonstrated by using full particle-in-cell simulation that large amplitude proton cyclotron waves, excited due to proton temperature anisotropy, nonlinearly destabilize SPA waves through parametric decay instability in a three component plasma composed of electrons, protons, and $…
Kink oscillations of a coronal loop are observed and studied in detail because they provide a unique probe into the structure of coronal loops through MHD seismology and a potential test of coronal heating through the phase-mixing of Alfvén waves. In particular, recent observations show that standing oscillations of loops often involve also higher harmonics, beside the fundamental mode. The damping of these kink oscillations is explained by mode coupling with Alfvén waves. We investigate the consequences for wave-based coronal heating of higher harmonics and what coronal heating observational …
This paper considers turbulent damping of Alfven waves in magnetized plasmas. We identify two cases of damping, one related to damping of cosmic rays streaming instability, the other related to damping of Alfven waves emitted by a macroscopic wave source, e.g. stellar atmosphere. The physical difference between the two cases is that in the former case the generated waves are emitted in respect to the local direction of magnetic field, in the latter in respect to the mean field. The scaling of damping is different in the two cases. We the regimes of turbulence ranging from subAlfvenic to superA…
Ion cyclotron resonance is one of the fundamental energy conversion processes through field-particle interaction in collisionless plasmas. However, the key evidence for ion cyclotron resonance (i.e., the coherence between electromagnetic fields and the ion phase space density) and the resulting damping of ion cyclotron waves (ICWs) has not yet been directly observed. Investigating the high-quality measurements of space plasmas by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) satellites, we find that both the wave electromagnetic field vectors and the bulk velocity of the disturbed ion velocity distribut…
Understanding the removal of energy from turbulent fluctuations in a magnetized plasma and the consequent energization of the constituent plasma particles is a major goal of heliophysics and astrophysics. Previous work has shown that nonlinear interactions among counterpropagating Alfven waves---or Alfven wave collisions---are the fundamental building block of astrophysical plasma turbulence and naturally generate current sheets in the strongly nonlinear limit. A nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation of a strong Alfven wave collision is used to examine the damping of the electromagnetic fluctuation…
Braginskii MHD provides a more accurate description of many plasma environments than classical MHD since it actively treats the stress tensor using a closure derived from physical principles. Stress tensor effects nonetheless remain relatively unexplored for solar MHD phenomena, especially in nonlinear regimes. This paper analytically examines nonlinear damping and longitudinal flows of propagating shear Alfvén waves. Most previous studies of MHD waves in Braginskii MHD considered the strict linear limit of vanishing wave perturbations. We show that those former linear results only apply to Al…
We use MHD simulations to detect the nonlinear effects of torsional Alfvén wave propagation in a potential magnetic field with exponentially divergent field lines, embedded in a stratified solar corona. In Paper I we considered solutions to the linearised governing equations torsional Alfvén wave propagation and showed, using a finite difference solver we developed named WiggleWave, that in certain scenarios wave damping is stronger than what would be predicted by our analytic solutions. In this paper we consider whether damping would be further enhanced by the presence of nonlinear effects. W…
We present a method to assess the plausibility of alternative mechanisms to explain the damping of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) transverse waves in solar coronal loops. The considered mechanisms are resonant absorption of kink waves in the Alfvén continuum, phase-mixing of Alfvén waves, and wave leakage. Our methods make use of Bayesian inference and model comparison techniques. We first infer the values for the physical parameters that control the wave damping, under the assumption of a particular mechanism, for typically observed damping time-scales. Then, the computation of marginal likelihood…
Stars are self-gravitating fluids in which pressure, buoyancy, rotation and magnetic fields provide the restoring forces for global modes of oscillation. Pressure and buoyancy energetically dominate, while rotation and magnetism are generally assumed to be weak perturbations and often ignored. However, observations of anomalously weak dipole mode amplitudes in red giant stars suggest that a substantial fraction of these are subject to an additional source of damping localised to their core region, with indirect evidence pointing to the role of a deeply buried magnetic field. It is also known t…
We derive a corrected analytical solution for the propagation and enhanced phase mixing of torsional Alfvén waves, in a potential magnetic field with exponentially divergent field lines, embedded in a stratified solar corona. Further we develop a code named TAWAS which calculates the analytic solution describing torsional Alfvén waves using IDL software language. We then use TAWAS to demonstrate that both our correction to the analytic solution and the inclusion of wave reflection have a significant impact on Alfvén wave damping. We continue to utilise TAWAS by performing a parameter study in …
Dissipation of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave energy has been proposed as a viable heating mechanism in the solar chromospheric plasma. Here, we use a simplified one-dimensional model of the chromosphere to theoretically investigate the physical processes and the spatial scales that are required for the efficient dissipation of Alfvén waves and slow magnetoacoustic waves. We consider the governing equations for a partially ionized hydrogen-helium plasma in the single-fluid MHD approximation and include realistic wave damping mechanisms that may operate in the chromosphere, namely Ohmic and amb…
In the present paper we study impact of the photospheric 5-minute oscillations on the ion cyclotron waves in the solar wind. We proceed from the assumption that the ion cyclotron waves in solar wind are experiencing modulation with a characteristic period of 5 minutes under the influence of Alfven waves driven by photospheric motions. The theory presented in our paper predicts a deep frequency modulation of the ion cyclotron waves. The frequency modulation is expected mainly from variations in orientation of the IMF lines. In turn, the variations in orientation are caused by the Alfven waves, …
Alfvenic waves are ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere and their dissipation may play an important role in atmospheric heating. In the partially ionized solar chromosphere, collisions between ions and neutrals are an efficient dissipative mechanism for Alfven waves with frequencies near the ion-neutral collision frequency. The collision frequency is proportional to the ion-neutral collision cross section for momentum transfer. Here, we investigate Alfven wave damping as a function of height in a simplified chromospheric model and compare the results for two sets of collision cross sections, nam…
Turbulence profoundly affects particle transport and plasma heating in many astrophysical plasma environments, from galaxy clusters to the solar corona and solar wind to Earth's magnetosphere. Both fluid and kinetic simulations of plasma turbulence ubiquitously generate coherent structures, in the form of current sheets, at small scales, and the locations of these current sheets appear to be associated with enhanced rates of dissipation of the turbulent energy. Therefore, illuminating the origin and nature of these current sheets is critical to identifying the dominant physical mechanisms of d…
Using a kinetic description of a homogeneous magnetized dusty plasma with Maxwellian distribution of electrons and protons and dust particles charged by inelastic collisions and by photoionization, we analyse the dispersion relation considering the case where waves and radiation propagate exactly parallel to the ambient magnetic field. The investigation emphasizes the changes that the photoionization process brings to the propagation and damping of the waves in a stellar wind environment, since Alfvén waves are believed to play a significant role in the heating and acceleration processes that …
Remote sensing observations of coronal holes show that heavy ions are hotter than protons and their temperature is anisotropic. In-situ observations of fast solar wind streams provide direct evidence for turbulent Alfvén wave spectrum, left-hand polarized ion-cyclotron waves, and He$^{++}$ -- proton drift in the solar wind plasma, which can produce temperature anisotropies by resonant absorption and perpendicular heating of the ions. Furthermore, the solar wind is expected to be inhomogeneous on decreasing scales approaching the Sun. We study the heating of solar wind ions in inhomogeneous pla…
Differential flows among different ion species are often observed in the solar wind, and such ion differential flows can provide the free energy to drive Alfvén/ion-cyclotron and fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities. Previous works mainly focused on ion beam instability under the parameters representative of the solar wind nearby 1 au. In this paper we further study proton beam instability using the radial models of the magnetic field and plasma parameters in the inner heliosphere. We explore a comprehensive distribution of proton beam instability as functions of the heliocentric distance …
Linear properties of kinetic Alfvén waves (KAWs) and kinetic slow waves (KSWs) are studied in the framework of two-fluid magnetohydrodynamics. We obtain the wave dispersion relations that are valid in a wide range of the wave frequency $ω$ and plasma-to-magnetic pressure ratio $β$. The KAW frequency can reach and exceed the ion cyclotron frequency at ion kinetic scales, whereas the KSW frequency remains sub-cyclotron. At $β\sim 1$, the plasma and magnetic pressure perturbations of both modes are in anti-phase, so that there is nearly no total pressure perturbations. However, these modes exhibi…
