Nature of Subproton Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind

C. H. K. Chen, S. Boldyrev, Q. Xia, and J. C. Perez

Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 225002 – Published 31 May 2013; Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 259901 (2013)

Abstract

The nature of subproton scale fluctuations in the solar wind is an open question, partly because two similar types of electromagnetic turbulence can occur: kinetic Alfvén turbulence and whistler turbulence. These two possibilities, however, have one key qualitative difference: whistler turbulence, unlike kinetic Alfvén turbulence, has negligible power in density fluctuations. In this Letter, we present new observational data, as well as analytical and numerical results, to investigate this difference. These results show, for the first time, that the fluctuations well below the proton scale are predominantly kinetic Alfvén turbulence, and, if present at all, the whistler fluctuations make up only a small fraction of the total energy.

Received 21 April 2013
Publisher error corrected 12 June 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.225002

Corrections

12 June 2013

Erratum

Publisher’s Note: Nature of Subproton Scale Turbulence in the Solar Wind [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 225002 (2013)]

C. H. K. Chen, S. Boldyrev, Q. Xia, and J. C. Perez

Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 259901 (2013)

Authors & Affiliations

C. H. K. Chen^1,*, S. Boldyrev², Q. Xia², and J. C. Perez³

¹Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
²Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
³Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire 03824, USA