Three dimensional, spherically polarized magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new numerical method to construct exactly spherically polarized magnetic fields, revealing that discontinuities are inevitable in 3D configurations with constant magnetic field magnitude.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel numerical approach for creating exactly spherically polarized magnetic fields and analyze their properties, highlighting the unavoidable presence of discontinuities.

Findings

Discontinuities are generically unavoidable in 3D spherically polarized magnetic fields.

Constant magnitude magnetic fields can only exist in limited regions separated by discontinuities.

The results provide new insights into solar wind turbulence and nonlinear magnetic fluctuations.

Abstract

Turbulence in the solar wind is characterized by Alfv\'enic fluctuations that exhibit spherical polarization, a geometric condition resulting in the nearly constant magnitude of the magnetic field. This property persists even during the largest field fluctuations, sometimes leading to local polarity reversals known as switchbacks. A longstanding question is whether three-dimensional smooth magnetic fields can simultaneously satisfy the constant-$|{\bf B}|$ constraint, and how such fields can be constructed analytically or numerically. Here we propose a new numerical method that allows to construct a magnetic field that is exactly spherically polarized, reproducing key features of solar wind fluctuations. Using this framework, we show that discontinuities are generically unavoidable in three-dimensional configurations. Fundamentally, this implies that field rotations cannot maintain exactly constant $|{\bf B}|$ in an arbitrarily large spatial domain. Rather, field rotations with constant magnitude can exist in limited regions of space separated by discontinuities where magnetic compressibility cannot be neglected. These results provide insights into the structure of solar wind turbulence and more generally into the nature of nonlinear magnetic fluctuations in plasmas.