SHINE: Observations and Analysis of Kinetic Dissipation Processes in the Solar Wind

首席调查员(PI)计划通过使用航天器数据和模拟来研究太阳风、日冕和整个日球层中的等离子体湍流。他的研究团队将研究湍流耗散过程，以确定传播的动能阿尔芬波(KAWS)如何导致太阳风质子加热。这些结果也可能与日冕的加热过程有关。PI的团队将使用星系团航天器的数据来研究等离子体湍流中的几个重要问题。这些问题包括确定质子被湍流加热的特定波数，决定运动区域中磁螺旋度谱形式的因素，以及特定KAW谱的随机加热是否是太阳风中热质子垂直加热的可行机制。PI将比较理论和模拟对光谱断裂附近的KAW谱形式的预测，并确定这些预测与真实的太阳风观测相比如何。PI的团队将通过参与为新墨西哥州中学科学教师提供培训的“洛斯阿拉莫斯地球和空间科学院”(LAESSA)扩展计划，将他们的研究与教育相结合。科学成果还将通过科学期刊上的出版物以及在社区讲习班和会议上的介绍来传播。

The Principal Investigator (PI) plans to investigate plasma turbulence in the solar wind, solar corona, and throughout the heliosphere by using spacecraft data and simulations. His research team will study turbulent dissipation processes in order to determine how propagating kinetic Alfven waves (KAWs) cause heating of solar wind protons. These results may also be relevant to the processes that heat the solar corona.The PI's team will use data from the Cluster spacecraft to study several important problems in plasma turbulence. These problems include the determination of the specific wavenumbers at which protons are heated by turbulence, the factors determining the form of the magnetic helicity spectrum in the kinetic regime, and whether stochastic heating by a particular KAW spectrum is a viable mechanism for the perpendicular heating of thermal protons in the solar wind. The PI will compare the predictions of theory and simulations for the form of the KAW spectrum in the vicinity of the spectral break and determine how these predictions compare with real solar wind observations.The PI's team will integrate their research with education by participating in the 'Los Alamos Earth and Space Science Academy' (LAESSA) outreach program, which provides training to New Mexico middle school science teachers. Scientific results will also be disseminated through publications in scientific journals and through presentations at community workshops and meetings.