Turbulence in the solar wind
The plasma environment of the solar wind exhibits various phenomena and fluctuations at different spatial scales. At sufficiently large spatial scales, a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) approximation, describing the plasma as a magnetized fluid, can be effectively employed. At smaller scales, however, one needs to consider kinetic effects related to individual charged particle movements in complex electromagnetic fields. The solar wind environment, along with available in-situ plasma and magnetic field measurements, represents a unique natural laboratory to study relevant turbulent phenomena. It turns out that an energy cascade is formed, transferring the energy from larger to smaller spatial scales, and ultimately resulting in the plasma heating. We focus on using solar wind plasma measurements with unprecedented sampling frequency to understand experimentally the transition between individual characteristic scales.
