Stability Analysis of Core-Strahl Electron Distributions in the Solar Wind

TL;DR

This study investigates the kinetic stability of core-strahl electron distributions in the solar wind, revealing instabilities at certain scales and angles, but not the expected whistler instability, suggesting a different origin for observed turbulence.

Contribution

The paper introduces a realistic modeling of the electron strahl distribution and performs a numerical stability analysis, challenging previous assumptions about whistler instabilities in the solar wind.

Findings

Core-strahl distribution unstable to kinetic Alfvén and magnetosonic modes.

Maximum growth rates at wavenumbers $k d_i \\lesssim 1$ and moderate oblique angles.

No direct evidence of whistler instability associated with the electron strahl.

Abstract

In this work, we analyze the kinetic stability of a solar wind electron distribution composed of core and strahl subpopulations. The core is modeled by a drifting Maxwellian distribution, while the strahl is modeled by an analytic function recently derived in (Horaites et al. 2018) from the collisional kinetic equation. We perform a numerical linear stability analysis using the LEOPARD solver (Astfalk & Jenko 2017), which allows for arbitrary gyrotropic distribution functions in a magnetized plasma. We find that for typical solar wind conditions, the core-strahl distribution is unstable to the kinetic Alfv\'en and magnetosonic modes. The maximum growth rates for these instabilities occur at wavenumbers $k d_i \lesssim 1$, at moderately oblique angles of propagation, thus providing a potential source of kinetic-scale turbulence. In contrast with previous reports, we however do not find evidence for a whistler instability directly associated with the electron strahl. This may be related to the more realistic shape of the electron strahl distribution function adopted in our work. We therefore suggest that the whistler modes often invoked to explain anomalous scattering of strahl particles could appear as a result of nonlinear mode coupling and turbulent cascade originating at scales $k d_i \lesssim 1$.