SH035-04
Early results from the Proton Alfa Sensor (PAS/SWA) onboard Solar Orbiter: the Solar Wind at different scales.
Monday, 14 December 2020: 04:12
Virtual
Philippe Louarn1, Andrei Fedorov2, Lubomir Prech3, Benoit Lavraud4, Alexis P Rouillard4, Vincent N Genot5, Illya Plotnikov1, Emmanuel Penou6, Alain Barthe2, Christopher John Owen7, Matthieu Berthomier8, D O Kataria9, Roberto Bruno10, Stefano A Livi11, Vincent Evans12, Jim M Raines13, Timothy Simon Horbury14, Helen O'Brien14, Virginia Angelini15, Milan Maksimovic16, Stuart D Bale17, Thomas Chust18, Yuri Khotyaintsev19, Vladimir Krasnoselskikh20, Matthieu Kretzschmar21, Dirk Plettemeier22, Jan Soucek23, Manfred Steller24, Stepan Stverak25, Pavel Travnicek26, Andris Vaivads27, Antonio Vecchio28 and International SWA Team, (1)IRAP, Toulouse, France, (2)IRAP, CNRS, Toulouse, France, (3)Charles University Prague, Prague 8, Czech Republic, (4)IRAP/CNRS, Toulouse, France, (5)IRAP / CNRS / UPS, PEPS, Toulouse, France, (6)Universite Paul Sabatier, TOULOUSE, France, (7)University College London, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Dorking, United Kingdom, (8)LPP, Ecole Polytechnique, UPMC, Paris, France, (9)University College London, Mullard Space Science Laboratory, London, United Kingdom, (10)INAF-IFSI, Rome, Italy, (11)SwRI, San Antonio, TX, United States, (12)Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, (13)University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (14)Imperial College London, Department of Physics, London, SW7, United Kingdom, (15)Imperial College London, Department of Physics, London, United Kingdom, (16)LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, Meudon, France, (17)University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (18)Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (UMR7648), CNRS/Ecole Polytechnique/UPMC/Univ. Paris Sud/Obs. de Paris, Paris, France, (19)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Uppsala, Sweden, (20)LPC2E, CNRS and University of Orléans, Orléans, France, (21)CNRS and University of Orléans, LPC2E, Orléans, France, (22)Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany, (23)Inst. of Atmospheric Physics, Praha 4, Czech Republic, (24)Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, (25)Astronomical Institute AS CR, Prague, Czech Republic, (26)University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, (27)IRF Swedish Institute of Space Physics Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden, (28)Paris Observatory Meudon, Meudon, France
Abstract:
Solar Orbiter is designed to discover the fundamental connections between the rapidly varying solar atmosphere and the solar wind. In operations since mid-2020, the Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA) plasma package is now providing comprehensive in-situ measurements of the solar wind. In particular, the Proton-Alpha Sensor (PAS) is determining the properties of the dominant solar wind ion populations through the measurements of the 3D distribution functions, density, bulk velocities, temperatures, and heat fluxes, at temporal cadences ranging from 4 s to ~0.1 s. This offers the possibility of analyzing the solar wind dynamics at vastly different scales, from days to fractions of seconds. Specifically, kinetic structures can thus be described at unprecedented resolution, both in time or spatial scales and phase space organization of the associated ion populations. We will report on observations of various structures that propagate in the solar wind (large amplitude waves, solitary structures, discontinuities between different types of solar winds...) with a focus on the formation of non-thermal distribution functions, the associated wave activity and magnetic perturbations.
