Ray tracing of ion-cyclotron waves in a coronal funnel

TL;DR

This paper uses ray tracing within a collisionless multi-fluid model to analyze ion-cyclotron wave propagation in a non-uniform coronal funnel, shedding light on plasma heating and solar wind acceleration.

Contribution

It introduces a linear perturbation analysis combined with ray tracing to study ion-cyclotron waves in a realistic coronal funnel environment.

Findings

Ray paths of ion-cyclotron waves are computed in a non-uniform plasma.

Spatial variation of wave properties is characterized along the ray paths.

Results support the role of ion-cyclotron waves in coronal heating.

Abstract

Remote observations of coronal holes have strongly implicated the kinetic interactions of ion-cyclotron waves with ions as a principal mechanism for plasma heating and acceleration of the fast solar wind. In order to study these waves, a linear perturbation analysis is used in the work frame of the collisionless multi-fluid model. We consider a non-uniform background plasma describing a funnel region and use the ray tracing equations to compute the ray path of the waves as well as the spatial variation of their properties.