Numerical Modeling of Suprathermal Electron Transport in the Solar Wind: Effects of Whistler Turbulence

Abstract

The solar wind electron velocity distribution function deviates significantly from an equilibrium Maxwellian distribution and is composed of a Maxwellian core, a suprathermal halo, a field-aligned component strahl, and a higher-energy superhalo. Wave-particle interactions associated with whistler wave turbulence are introduced into the kinetic transport equation to describe the interaction between the suprathermal electrons and the whistler waves and to explain the observation that the halo and the strahl relative densities vary in an opposite sense. An efficient numerical method has been developed to solve the Fokker-Planck kinetic transport equation. Application of the numerical method to suprathermal electrons in the solar wind in the presence of whistler waves is presented. Comparison and analysis between the numerical results and observations are made.