HR: 1340h
AN: NG43A-0558    [Abstracts]
TI: Compressibility in Solar Wind Plasma Turbulence
AU: * Chapman, S C
EM: S.C.Chapman@warwick.ac.uk
AF: Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL United Kingdom
AU: Hnat, B
EM: B.Hnat@warwick.ac.uk
AF: Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL United Kingdom
AU: Rowlands, G
EM: G.Rowlands@warwick.ac.uk
AF: Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL United Kingdom
AB: Incompressible magnetohydrodynamics is often assumed to describe solar wind turbulence. We use extended self-similarity to reveal scaling in the structure functions of density fluctuations in the solar wind as seen by the ACE spacecraft. The obtained scaling is then compared with that found in the inertial range of quantities identified previously as passive scalars in other turbulent systems. We find that these are not coincident. This implies that either solar wind turbulence is compressible or that straightforward comparison of structure functions does not adequately capture its inertial range properties.
DE: 2149 MHD waves and turbulence (2752, 6050, 7836)
DE: 2159 Plasma waves and turbulence
DE: 3265 Stochastic processes (3235, 4468, 4475, 7857)
DE: 4490 Turbulence (3379, 4568, 7863)
DE: 6050 Plasma and MHD instabilities (2149, 2752, 7836)
SC: Nonlinear Geophysics [NG]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005