Electromagnetic Proton Beam Instabilities in the Inner Heliosphere: Energy Transfer Rate, Radial Distribution, and Effective Excitation

TL;DR

This study investigates proton beam instabilities in the inner heliosphere, analyzing energy transfer, radial distribution, and excitation mechanisms, with implications for solar wind dynamics and coronal heating.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of proton beam instabilities across various heliocentric distances, including energy transfer details and an effective growth length criterion for excitation efficiency.

Findings

Oblique Alfvén/ion-cyclotron and fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities are driven by proton beams at 600-1300 km/s.

Both parallel and perpendicular electric fields contribute to wave excitation.

Proton beam-driven waves can be damped in the solar atmosphere, aiding coronal heating.

Abstract

Differential flows among different ion species are often observed in the solar wind, and such ion differential flows can provide the free energy to drive Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron and fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities. Previous works mainly focused on ion beam instability under the parameters representative of the solar wind nearby 1 au. In this paper we further study proton beam instability using the radial models of the magnetic field and plasma parameters in the inner heliosphere. We explore a comprehensive distribution of proton beam instability as functions of the heliocentric distance and the beam speed. We also perform a detailed analysis of the energy transfer between unstable waves and particles and quantify how much the free energy of the proton beam flows into unstable waves and other kinds of particle species (i.e., proton core, alpha particle, and electron). This work clarifies that both parallel and perpendicular electric fields are responsible for the excitation of oblique Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron and oblique fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities. Moreover, this work proposes an effective growth length to estimate whether the instability is efficiently excited or not. It shows that oblique Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron instability, oblique fast-magnetosonic/whistler instability, and oblique Alfv\'en/ion-beam instability can be efficiently driven by proton beams drifting at the speed $\sim$ 600-1300 km s$^{-1}$ in the solar atmosphere. In particular, oblique Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron waves driven in the solar atmosphere can be significantly damped therein, leading to the solar corona heating. These results are helpful for understanding proton beam dynamics in the inner heliosphere and can be verified through in situ satellite measurements.