Abstract
We have investigated the nonlinear interaction between a 3D kinetic Alfvén wave (KAW) and an ion acoustic wave (IAW) in solar wind plasmas. A set of dimensionless equations was developed that describes the pump KAW perturbed by a low-frequency ion acoustic wave. The dependence of the growth rate of the modulational instability on the perturbation wave number was studied. We simulated numerically the dynamical equation of KAW with a pseudo-spectral method, taking ponderomotive nonlinearity into account. The 3D KAW itself propagates in the form of a vortex beam in a magnetised plasma, which manifests the presence of orbital angular momentum of the wave eigenmodes. We discuss the evolution of these vortex structures. Our results reveal that the Kolmogorov scaling is followed by a steeper scaling of power spectra, which is consistent with the solar wind observations by the Cluster spacecraft. We discuss the relevance of our investigation for solar wind plasmas.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) under the RESPOND program, and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India.
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Yadav, N., Sharma, R.P. Nonlinear Interaction of 3D Kinetic Alfvén Waves and Ion Acoustic Waves in Solar Wind Plasmas. Sol Phys 289, 1803–1814 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-013-0436-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-013-0436-z