Instabilities Driven by Proton Temperature Anisotropy in the Presence of Alpha Particles: Implications for Proton-temperature-anisotropy Constraint in the Solar Wind

Abstract

In situ measurements reveal that proton temperature anisotropy is ubiquitous in the solar wind. Various plasma instabilities have been proposed to regulate the distribution of the proton temperature anisotropy in the solar wind; detailed constraint processes are still unclear. In this paper, we study the effects of alpha beams on both the forward and backward proton temperature anisotropy instabilities at parallel and oblique propagation with the Vlasov theory, and compare the theoretical results with the Wind observation. As the alpha-beam drift velocity v _α / v _A increases, the growth rates of forward Alfvén/ion-cyclotron (FA/IC) and backward magnetosonic/whistler (BM/W) instabilities increase, those of backward Alfvén/ion-cyclotron (BA/IC) and forward magnetosonic/whistler (FM/W) instabilities decrease, and those of the mirror and forward Alfvén wave (FAW) instabilities are nearly constant. In particular, there are different constraining mechanisms on the distribution of proton temperature anisotropy for different values of the alpha-beam drift velocity. The proton temperature anisotropy instability together with the alpha beam can provide a potential explanation for the distribution of the proton temperature anisotropy in the solar wind.

Keywords

• Solar wind
• Space plasmas
• Interplanetary physics
• Interplanetary magnetic fields