Dependence of solar wind power spectra on the direction of the local mean magnetic field

(Abridged) Wavelet analysis can be used to measure the power spectrum of solar wind fluctuations along a line in any direction with respect to the local mean magnetic field. This technique is applied to study solar wind turbulence in high-speed streams in the ecliptic plane near solar minimum using magnetic field measurements with a cadence of eight vectors per second. The analysis of nine high-speed streams shows that the reduced spectrum of magnetic field fluctuations (trace power) is approximately azimuthally symmetric about B_0 in both the inertial range and dissipation range; in the inertial range the spectra are characterized by a power-law exponent that changes continuously from 1.6 \pm 0.1 in the direction perpendicular to the mean field to 2.0 \pm 0.1 in the direction parallel to the mean field. The large uncertainties suggest that the perpendicular power-law indices 3/2 and 5/3 are both consistent with the data. The results are similar to those found by Horbury et al. (2008) at high heliographic latitudes.Comment: Submitted to: The Astrophysical Journa

Scale-dependent Polarization of Solar Wind Velocity Fluctuations at the Inertial and Kinetic Scales

We study the polarization properties of the velocity fluctuations in solar wind turbulence using high-resolution data from the Spektr-R spacecraft. The ratio of perpendicular to parallel velocity fluctuations in the inertial range is smaller than the equivalent ratio for magnetic fluctuations, but gradually increases throughout this range. In the kinetic range, there is a large decrease in the ratio, similar to the magnetic fluctuations. We compare the measurements to numerical solutions for a combination of kinetic Alfvén waves and slow waves, finding that both the slow increase and sharp decrease in the ratio are consistent with a majority population of Alfvén waves and minority population of slow waves in critical balance. Furthermore, the beta-dependence of this scale-dependent ratio can be successfully captured in the model when incorporating a beta-dependent Alfvén to slow wave ratio similar to that observed in the solar wind

Association of surprathermal particles with coherent structures and shocks

Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain observed suprathermal particle populations in the solar wind, including direct acceleration at flares, stochastic acceleration, shock acceleration, and acceleration by random compression or reconnection sites. Using magnetic field and suprathermal particle data from the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), we identify coherent structures and interplanetary shocks, and analyze the temporal association of energetic particle fluxes with these coherent structures. Coherent structures having a range of intensities are identified using the magnetic Partial Variance of Increments statistic, essentially a normalized vector increment. A stronger association of energetic particle flux in the 0.047-4.75 MeV range is found with intense magnetic discontinuities than is found with shocks. Nevertheless, the average profile of suprathermals near shocks is quite consistent with standard models of diffusive shock acceleration, while a significant amount of the energetic particles measured and strong discontinuities are found by ACE within six hours of a shock. This evidence supports the view that multiple mechanisms contribute to the acceleration and transport of interplanetary suprathermal particles