Right‐handed circularly polarized dispersive Alfvén wave: Localization and turbulence in solar wind

Abstract

AbstractThe elucidation of the turbulent spectrum in the solar wind region in the dispersive range of scales is not yet completely established. The observational analysis of many spacecraft report that the fluctuations on the order of (or smaller scales) proton inertial length λi = c/ω p i show disparity with respect to the large‐scale fluctuations. We present a parallel‐propagating dispersive Alfvén wave that becomes dispersive as a result of the finite frequency of the wave, when subjected to transverse instability can be used to study the steepening in power spectrum around proton inertial length. The transverse density perturbations of acoustic wave can couple nonlinearly with parallel‐propagating pump and the driven ponderomotive force consecutively leads to growth of perturbations. We have studied the evolution of localized structures with time and the power spectral density when the system reaches quasi steady state. The application of the results in the solar wind turbulence is also discussed.