Solar wind stream interaction: Electron temperature and heat flux rise in the low-speed stream

ALEXANDER, P.; DUHAU, S.

Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Año: 1990 vol. 95 p. 19149 - 19154

The strong compression produced in two-stream interaction regions in the solar wind is a local source of heating. The study of the distribution of that energy between heat and internal energy provides valuable information about transport processes. In the present work, the electron heat flux and temperature rise in the compression produced within the low-speed portion of the interaction region is predicted using a new heat conduction law valid for collisionless plasmas with isotropic electron temperature, introduced recently by one of the authors. Equations are found for the electron heat flux and temperature rise as functions of two parameters, one related to the strength of the compression and the other one to the heat flux at the boundaries of the region under study. These equations lead to agreement between theory and experiment. Copyright © 1990 by the American Geophysical Union.