Nonlinear effects related to circularly polarized dispersive Alfvén waves

Abstract

In situ measurements of solar wind have strongly implicated its turbulent behavior. The observed power spectra report a breakpoint around length scales of the order of ion scales. As one of the responsible mechanisms for the observed steepening in power spectrum, our approach includes a right circularly polarized dispersive Alfvén wave (DAW) with finite frequency correction which, when subjected to transverse collapse/filamentation instability, may possibly result in steepening of spectrum and progressive transfer of energy from larger scales to smaller scales. We have studied the nonlinear effects associated with coupling of DAW with kinetic Alfvén wave in solar wind at 1 A.U. The formation of localized structures provides a clue about the emergence of turbulence. Numerical simulation is performed to study localization and power spectral density of the field and density fluctuations. The results show steeper spectrum indicating transfer of large scale turbulent energy down to small scales.