Exploring turbulence from the Sun to the local interstellar medium: Current challenges and perspectives for future space missions

Fraternale, Federico; Zhao, Lingling; Pogorelov, N. V.; Sorriso‐Valvo, L.; Redfield, Seth; Zhang, Ming; Ghanbari, Keyvan; Florinski, V.; Chen, Thomas Y.

doi:10.3389/fspas.2022.1064098

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 163 publications

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“…Alternative or additional space mission developments concern the exploration of different regions, such as the outer heliosphere and the interstellar medium (see, e.g., the Interstellar Probe white paper, available at https:// www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/1866264/3219248/Wimmer-SchweingruberR_ 2019-08-04-interstellar-whitepaper.pdf, and Fraternale et al, 2022). Those regions were poorly explored so far, and the probes that reached out beyond Jupiter's orbit could not provide quality plasma data.…”

Section: Observational Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling Laws for the Energy Transfer in Space Plasma Turbulence

Marino,

Sorriso-Valvo

2023

Preprint

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One characteristic trait of space plasmas is the multi-scale dynamics resulting from non-linear transfers and conversions of various forms of energy. Routinely evidenced in a range from the large-scale solar structures down to the characteristic scales of ions and electrons, turbulence is a major cross-scale energy transfer mechanism in space plasmas. At intermediate scales, the fate of the energy in the outer space is mainly determined by the interplay of turbulent motions and propagating waves. More mechanisms are advocated to account for the transfer and conversion of energy, including magnetic reconnection, emission of radiation and particle energization, all contributing to make the dynamical state of solar and heliospheric plasmas difficult to predict. The characterization of the energy transfer in space plasmas benefited from numerous robotic missions. However, together with breakthrough technologies, novel theoretical developments and methodologies for the analysis of data played a crucial role in advancing our understanding of how energy is transferred across the scales in the space. In recent decades, several scaling laws were obtained providing effective ways to model the energy flux in turbulent plasmas. Under certain assumptions, these relations enabled to utilize reduced knowledge (in terms of degrees of freedom) of the fields from spacecraft observations to obtain direct estimates of the energy transfer rates (and not only) in the interplanetary space, also in the proximity of the Sun and planets. Starting from the first third-order exact law for the magnetohydrodynamics by Politano and Pouquet (1998), we present a detailed review of the main scaling laws for the energy transfer in plasma turbulence and their application, presenting theoretical, numerical and observational milestones of what has become one of the main approaches for the characterization of turbulent dynamics and energetics in space plasmas. Copyright permission for the seminar banner granted by [ESA/ATG medialab](https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/06/Solar_Orbiter_reaches_first_perihelion).

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Section: Observational Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling Laws for the Energy Transfer in Space Plasma Turbulence

Marino,

Sorriso-Valvo

2023

Preprint

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Scaling laws for the energy transfer in space plasma turbulence

Marino

Sorriso‐Valvo

2023

Physics Reports

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Plasma line detected by Voyager 1 in the interstellar medium: Tips and traps for quasi-thermal noise spectroscopy

Meyer-Vernet,

Lecacheux,

Moncuquet

et al. 2023

A&A

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The quasi-thermal motion of plasma particles produces electrostatic fluctuations, whose voltage power spectrum induced on electric antennas reveals plasma properties. In weakly magnetised plasmas, the main feature of the spectrum is a line at the plasma frequency – proportional to the square root of the electron density – whose global shape can reveal the electron temperature, while the fine structure reveals the suprathermal electrons. Since it is based on electrostatic waves, quasi-thermal noise spectroscopy (QTN) provides in situ measurements. This method has been successfully used for more than four decades in a large variety of heliosphere environments. Very recently, it has been tentatively applied in the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) to interpret the weak line discovered on board Voyager 1 and in the context of the proposed interstellar probe mission. The present paper shows that the line is still observed in the Voyager Plasma Wave Science data, and concentrates on the main features that distinguish the plasma QTN in the VLISM from that in the heliosphere. We give several tools to interpret it in this medium and highlight the errors arising when it is interpreted without caution, as has recently been done in several publications. We show recent solar wind data, which confirm that the electric field of the QTN line in a weakly magnetised stable plasma is not aligned with the local magnetic field. We explain why the amplitude of the line does not depend on the concentration of suprathermal electrons, and why its observation with a short antenna does not require a kappa electron velocity distribution. Finally, we suggest an origin for the suprathermal electrons producing the QTN and we summarise the properties of the VLISM that could be deduced from an appropriate implementation of QTN spectroscopy on a suitably designed instrument.

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Exploring turbulence from the Sun to the local interstellar medium: Current challenges and perspectives for future space missions

Cited by 4 publications

References 163 publications

Scaling Laws for the Energy Transfer in Space Plasma Turbulence

Scaling Laws for the Energy Transfer in Space Plasma Turbulence

Scaling laws for the energy transfer in space plasma turbulence

Plasma line detected by Voyager 1 in the interstellar medium: Tips and traps for quasi-thermal noise spectroscopy

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