The Impact of Turbulent Solar Wind Fluctuations on Solar Orbiter Plasma Proton Measurements

TL;DR

This study simulates Solar Orbiter's proton measurements to assess how solar wind turbulence affects plasma parameter accuracy, finding that turbulence has only minor impacts on the instrument's observations.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation framework to evaluate the impact of solar wind turbulence on Solar Orbiter's plasma measurements, highlighting measurement robustness.

Findings

Turbulence effects cause minor deviations in plasma parameter estimates.

Simulated observations match input parameters within acceptable error margins.

Solar Orbiter's proton measurements are resilient to typical solar wind fluctuations.

Abstract

Solar Orbiter will observe the Sun and the inner heliosphere to study the connections between solar activity, coronal structure, and the origin of the solar wind. The plasma instruments on board Solar Orbiter will determine the three-dimensional velocity distribution functions of the plasma ions and electrons with high time resolution. The analysis of these distributions will determine the plasma bulk parameters, such as density, velocity, and temperature. This paper examines the effects of short-time-scale plasma variations on particle measurements and the estimated bulk parameters of the plasma. For the purpose of this study, we simulate the expected observations of solar wind protons, taking into account the performance of the Proton-Alpha Sensor (PAS) on board Solar Orbiter. We particularly examine the effects of Alfv\'enic and slow-mode-like fluctuations, commonly observed in the solar wind on timescales of milliseconds to hours, on the observations. We do this by constructing distribution functions from modeled observations and calculate their statistical moments in order to derive plasma bulk parameters. The comparison between the derived parameters with the known input allows us to estimate the expected accuracy of Solar Orbiter proton measurements in the solar wind under typical conditions. We find that the plasma fluctuations due to these turbulence effects have only minor effects on future SWA-PAS observations