Sub-proton range induced large-scale transitions in solar wind magnetic field

Tommaso Alberti , Davide Faranda (1, 2, 3, 4) , Reik V Donner , Theophile Caby , Vincenzo Carbone , Giuseppe Consolini , Berengere Dubrulle , Sandro Vaienti (5, 6)

1 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
2 London Mathematical Laboratory
3 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
4 ESTIMR - Extrèmes : Statistiques, Impacts et Régionalisation
5 CPT - Centre de Physique Théorique - UMR 7332
6 CPT - E7 Systèmes dynamiques : théories et applications

We investigate the role of sub-proton dynamics in inducing large-scale transitions in the solar wind magnetic eld by means of dynamical systems metrics based on instantaneous fractal dimensions. By looking at the corresponding multiscale features, we observe a break in the average attractor dimension occurring at the crossover between the inertial and the sub-proton regime. Our analysis suggests that large-scale transitions are induced by sub-proton dynamics through an inverse cascade mechanism driven by local correlations, while electron contributions (if any) are hidden by instrumental noise.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Mécanique statistique [cond-mat.stat-mech]

Tommaso Alberti, Davide Faranda, Reik V Donner, Theophile Caby, Vincenzo Carbone, et al.. Sub-proton range induced large-scale transitions in solar wind magnetic field. 2021. ⟨hal-03189425v1⟩