Fire Hose instability driven by alpha particle temperature anisotropy

TL;DR

This study explores how alpha particles with temperature anisotropy can drive fire hose instabilities in solar wind plasmas, affecting proton behavior and plasma stability, using linear theory and hybrid simulations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that alpha particles can trigger fire hose instabilities even at low plasma beta and shows how these instabilities influence both ion species and plasma dynamics.

Findings

Alpha particles can drive fire hose instability below beta=1.

Instabilities lead to proton heating and reduced anisotropy.

Distinct wave spectra are generated by alpha and proton instabilities.

Abstract

We investigate properties of a solar wind-like plasma including a secondary alpha particle population exhibiting a parallel temperature anisotropy with respect to the background magnetic field, using linear and quasi-linear predictions and by means of one-dimensional hybrid simulations. We show that anisotropic alpha particles can drive a parallel fire hose instability analogous to that generated by protons, but that, remarkably, the instability can be triggered also when the parallel plasma beta of alpha particles is below unity. The wave activity generated by the alpha anisotropy affects the evolution of the more abundant protons, leading to their anisotropic heating. When both ion species have sufficient parallel anisotropies both of them can drive the instability, and we observe generation of two distinct peaks in the spectra of the fluctuations, with longer wavelengths associated to alphas and shorter ones to protons. If a non-zero relative drift is present, the unstable modes propagate preferentially in the direction of the drift associated with the unstable species. The generated waves scatter particles and reduce their temperature anisotropy to marginally stable state, and, moreover, they significantly reduce the relative drift between the two ion populations. The coexistence of modes excited by both species leads to saturation of the plasma in distinct regions of the beta/anisotropy parameter space for protons and alpha particles, in good agreement with in situ solar wind observations. Our results confirm that fire hose instabilities are likely at work in the solar wind and limit the anisotropy of different ion species in the plasma.