EGU21-6686
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6686
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Multiscale Solar Wind Turbulence Properties inside and near Switchbacks measured by Parker Solar Probe

Mihailo Martinović1, Kristopher Klein1, Jia Huang2, Benjamin Chandran3, Justin Kasper2, Emily Lichko1, Trevor Bowen4, Christopher Chen5, Lorenzo Matteini6, Michael Stevens7, Anthony Case7, and Stuart Bale4
Mihailo Martinović et al.
  • 1University of Arizona, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, United States of America (mmartinovic@arizona.edu)
  • 2Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States of America
  • 3Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, United States of America
  • 4Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, United States of America
  • 5School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
  • 6Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
  • 7Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States of America

Parker Solar Probe (PSP) routinely observes magnetic field deflections in the solar wind at distances less than 0.3 au from the Sun. These deflections are related to structures commonly called 'switchbacks' (SBs), whose origins and characteristic properties are currently debated. Here, we use a database of visually selected SB intervals - and regions of solar wind plasma measured just before and after each SB - to examine plasma parameters, turbulent spectra from inertial to dissipation scales, and intermittency effects in these intervals. We find that many features, such as perpendicular stochastic heating rates and turbulence spectral slopes are fairly similar inside and outside of SBs. However, important kinetic properties, such as the characteristic break scale between the inertial to dissipation ranges differ inside and outside these intervals, as does the level of intermittency, which is notably enhanced inside SBs and in their close proximity, most likely due to magnetic field and velocity shears observed at the edges. We conclude that the plasma inside and outside of a SB, in most of the observed cases, belongs to the same stream, and that the evolution of these structures is most likely regulated by kinetic processes, which dominate small scale structures at the SB edges. 

How to cite: Martinović, M., Klein, K., Huang, J., Chandran, B., Kasper, J., Lichko, E., Bowen, T., Chen, C., Matteini, L., Stevens, M., Case, A., and Bale, S.: Multiscale Solar Wind Turbulence Properties inside and near Switchbacks measured by Parker Solar Probe, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-6686, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6686, 2021.

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