Electron-Driven Instabilities in the Solar Wind

Verscharen, Daniel;Chandran, B. D. G.;Boella, E.;Halekas, J.;Whittlesey, P. L.;et.al.
(2022) Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences — Vol. 9, p. 25 (2022)

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Authors
  • Verscharen, DanielMullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Dorking, United Kingdom
    Author
  • Chandran, B. D. G.Space Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States,
    Author
  • Boella, E.4 Physics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
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  • Halekas, J.Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Iowa, Iowa, IA, United States,
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  • Pierrard, Vivianeorcid-logoUCLouvain
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  • Whittlesey, P. L.Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
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Abstract
The electrons are an essential particle species in the solar wind. They often exhibit nonequilibrium features in their velocity distribution function. These include temperature anisotropies, tails (kurtosis), and reflectional asymmetries (skewness), which contribute a significant heat flux to the solar wind. If these non-equilibrium features are sufficiently strong, they drive kinetic micro-instabilities. We develop a semi-graphical framework based on the equations of quasi-linear theory to describe electron-driven instabilities in the solar wind. We apply our framework to resonant instabilities driven by temperature anisotropies. These include the electron whistler anisotropy instability and the propagating electron firehose instability. We then describe resonant instabilities driven by reflectional asymmetries in the electron distribution function. These include the electron/ion-acoustic, kinetic Alfvén heat-flux, Langmuir, electron-beam, electron/ion-cyclotron, electron/ electron-acoustic, whistler heat-flux, oblique fast-magnetosonic/whistler, lower-hybrid fan, and electron-deficit whistler instability. We briefly comment on non-resonant instabilities driven by electron temperature anisotropies such as the mirror-mode and the non-propagating firehose instability. We conclude our review with a list of open research topics in the field of electron-driven instabilities in the solar wind
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Verscharen, D., Chandran, B. D. G., Boella, E., Halekas, J., Innocenti, M. E., Jagarlamudi, V. K., Micera, A., Pierrard, V., Štverák, Š., Vasko, I. Y., Velli, M., & Whittlesey, P. L. (2022). Electron-Driven Instabilities in the Solar Wind. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, 9, 25. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2022.951628 (Original work published 2022)