Highly structured slow solar wind emerging from an equatorial coronal hole.

During the solar minimum, when the Sun is at its least active, the solar wind1,2 is observed at high latitudes as a predominantly fast (more than 500 kilometres per second), highly Alfvénic rarefied stream of plasma originating from deep within coronal holes. Closer to the ecliptic plane, the solar wind is interspersed with a more variable slow wind3 of less than 500 kilometres per second. The precise origins of the slow wind streams are less certain4; theories and observations suggest that they may originate at the tips of helmet streamers5,6, from interchange reconnection near coronal hole boundaries7,8, or within coronal holes with highly diverging magnetic fields9,10. The heating mechanism required to drive the solar wind is also unresolved, although candidate mechanisms include Alfvén-wave turbulence11,12, heating by reconnection in nanoflares13, ion cyclotron wave heating14 and acceleration by thermal gradients1. At a distance of one astronomical unit, the wind is mixed and evolved, and therefore much of the diagnostic structure of these sources and processes has been lost. Here we present observations from the Parker Solar Probe15 at 36 to 54 solar radii that show evidence of slow Alfvénic solar wind emerging from a small equatorial coronal hole. The measured magnetic field exhibits patches of large, intermittent reversals that are associated with jets of plasma and enhanced Poynting flux and that are interspersed in a smoother and less turbulent flow with a near-radial magnetic field. Furthermore, plasma-wave measurements suggest the existence of electron and ion velocity-space micro-instabilities10,16 that are associated with plasma heating and thermalization processes. Our measurements suggest that there is an impulsive mechanism associated with solar-wind energization and that micro-instabilities play a part in heating, and we provide evidence that low-latitude coronal holes are a key source of the slow solar wind.

Electrostatic Steepening of Whistler Waves.

We present surprising observations by the NASA Van Allen Probes spacecraft of whistler waves with substantial electric field power at harmonics of the whistler wave fundamental frequency. The wave power at harmonics is due to a nonlinearly steepened whistler electrostatic field that becomes possible in the two-temperature electron plasma due to the whistler wave coupling to the electron-acoustic mode. The simulation and analytical estimates show that the steepening takes a few tens of milliseconds. The hydrodynamic energy cascade to higher frequencies facilitates efficient energy transfer from cyclotron resonant electrons, driving the whistler waves, to lower energy electrons.

Publisher Correction: Wave energy budget analysis in the Earth's radiation belts uncovers a missing energy.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8143.

Revisiting the structure of low-Mach number, low-beta, quasi-perpendicular shocks.

A study of the structure of 145 low-Mach number (M ≤ 3), low-beta (ß ≤ 1), quasi-perpendicular interplanetary collisionless shock waves observed by the Wind spacecraft has provided strong evidence that these shocks have large-amplitude whistler precursors. The common occurrence and large amplitudes of the precursors raise doubts about the standard assumption that such shocks can be classified as laminar structures. This directly contradicts standard models. In 113 of the 145 shocks (~78%), we observe clear evidence of magnetosonic-whistler precursor fluctuations with frequencies ~0.1-7 Hz. We find no dependence on the upstream plasma beta, or any other shock parameter, for the presence or absence of precursors. The majority (~66%) of the precursors propagate at ≤45° with respect to the upstream average magnetic field and most (~87%) propagate ≥30° from the shock normal vector. Further, most (~79%) of the waves propagate at least 20° from the coplanarity plane. The peak-to-peak wave amplitudes (δB pk-pk) are large with a range of maximum values for the 113 precursors of ~0.4-13 nT with an average of ~2 nT. When we normalize the wave amplitudes to the upstream averaged magnetic field and the shock ramp amplitude, we find average values of ~40% and ~220%, respectively.

The FIELDS Instrument Suite for Solar Probe Plus: Measuring the Coronal Plasma and Magnetic Field, Plasma Waves and Turbulence, and Radio Signatures of Solar Transients.

NASA's Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission will make the first in situ measurements of the solar corona and the birthplace of the solar wind. The FIELDS instrument suite on SPP will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, the properties of in situ plasma waves, electron density and temperature profiles, and interplanetary radio emissions, amongst other things. Here, we describe the scientific objectives targeted by the SPP/FIELDS instrument, the instrument design itself, and the instrument concept of operations and planned data products.

Wave energy budget analysis in the Earth's radiation belts uncovers a missing energy.

Whistler-mode emissions are important electromagnetic waves pervasive in the Earth's magnetosphere, where they continuously remove or energize electrons trapped by the geomagnetic field, controlling radiation hazards to satellites and astronauts and the upper-atmosphere ionization or chemical composition. Here, we report an analysis of 10-year Cluster data, statistically evaluating the full wave energy budget in the Earth's magnetosphere, revealing that a significant fraction of the energy corresponds to hitherto generally neglected very oblique waves. Such waves, with 10 times smaller magnetic power than parallel waves, typically have similar total energy. Moreover, they carry up to 80% of the wave energy involved in wave-particle resonant interactions. It implies that electron heating and precipitation into the atmosphere may have been significantly under/over-valued in past studies considering only conventional quasi-parallel waves. Very oblique waves may turn out to be a crucial agent of energy redistribution in the Earth's radiation belts, controlled by solar activity.

Direct observation of radiation-belt electron acceleration from electron-volt energies to megavolts by nonlinear whistlers.

The mechanisms for accelerating electrons from thermal to relativistic energies in the terrestrial magnetosphere, on the sun, and in many astrophysical environments have never been verified. We present the first direct observation of two processes that, in a chain, cause this acceleration in Earth's outer radiation belt. The two processes are parallel acceleration from electron-volt to kilovolt energies by parallel electric fields in time-domain structures (TDS), after which the parallel electron velocity becomes sufficiently large for Doppler-shifted upper band whistler frequencies to be in resonance with the electron gyration frequency, even though the electron energies are kilovolts and not hundreds of kilovolts. The electrons are then accelerated by the whistler perpendicular electric field to relativistic energies in several resonant interactions. TDS are packets of electric field spikes, each spike having duration of a few hundred microseconds and containing a local parallel electric field. The TDS of interest resulted from nonlinearity of the parallel electric field component in oblique whistlers and consisted of ∼ 0.1 msec pulses superposed on the whistler waveform with each such spike containing a net parallel potential the order of 50 V. Local magnetic field compression from remote activity provided the free energy to drive the two processes. The expected temporal correlations between the compressed magnetic field, the nonlinear whistlers with their parallel electric field spikes, the electron flux and the electron pitch angle distributions were all observed.

Dispersive nature of high mach number collisionless plasma shocks: Poynting flux of oblique whistler waves.

Whistler wave trains are observed in the foot region of high Mach number quasiperpendicular shocks. The waves are oblique with respect to the ambient magnetic field as well as the shock normal. The Poynting flux of the waves is directed upstream in the shock normal frame starting from the ramp of the shock. This suggests that the waves are an integral part of the shock structure with the dispersive shock as the source of the waves. These observations lead to the conclusion that the shock ramp structure of supercritical high Mach number shocks is formed as a balance of dispersion and nonlinearity.