SPRG Seminars
September 28, 2010:
" Solar wind plasma heating: some recent progress and future prospects "
Dr. Stuart Bale,
University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory
The radial profile of solar wind temperature suggests that the wind is heated in a continuous, distributed way as it convects away from the Sun. This in turn suggests plasma turbulence as a heating mechanism. I will describe some relatively recent work which suggests that a perpendicular Alfven wave cascade heats the plasma at short wavelengths. I will also describe some work that confuses this picture and suggests that the magnetic fluctuation power is generated locally (in k space) by kinetic instabilities. Finally, I'll describe the FIELDS instrument, selected for Solar Probe Plus, which we believe will make the measurements required to solve this problem.