Intermittency in interplanetary coronal mass ejections observed by Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter

ICMEs are often observed as large-scale flux ropes with smoothly varying magnetic fields, but a spectrum of fluctuations is present at smaller scales. A well-known feature of solar wind plasma is that, when moving from large to small scales, distributions of fluctuation amplitudes become more non-Gaussian. This behaviour is a manifestation of intermittency, i.e., an increasingly uneven spatial distribution of energy with decreasing scale in the plasma. While intermittency has been studied extensively in the solar wind, few studies have considered intermittency within ICMEs.

This presentation introduces a statistical study of intermittency of magnetic field fluctuations within ICMEs observed by Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter at heliospheric distances ranging from 0.2 to 1 AU. The analysis uses structure functions with kurtosis as the main measure of intermittency. The analysis is repeated within ICME sheath regions, as well as in the upstream and downstream solar wind. The results obtained from these plasma environments are compared to the ones obtained within ICMEs. Finally, the connection between intermittency and heliospheric distance, cross-helicity, and residual energy is investigated.