Spatial transport and spectral transfer of solar wind turbulence composed of Alfvén waves and convective structures II: numerical results

• Main Author: J. M. Schmidt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications
• Series: Annales Geophysicae
• Online Access: http://www.ann-geophys.net/13/475/1995/angeo-13-475-1995.html

This work follows the paper titled "Spatial transport and spectral transfer of solar wind turbulence composed of Alfvén waves and convective structures I: The theoretical model", and deals with the detailed physics and numerical solution of a two-component solar wind model, consisting of small-scale Alfvén waves and convected structures. In particular, we present numerical results which qualitatively reflect many of the observed features of the radial and spectral evolution of the turbulent energies, the residual energy, the cross-helicity and Alfvén-ratio in high-speed solar wind streams. These features are the following: the formation of a characteristic "inclined eye", which evolves between the energy spectra displayed over the frequency axis and tends to close in the radial development of the spectra, a steepening of all spectra towards Kolmogorov-like <i>f</i><sup>-5/3</sup> spectra, the development of the normalized cross-helicity towards a constant not much less than one and the formation of a "trough" form of the Alfvén ratio with a z-shaped left boundary, By weighting special terms in the equations differently, we can also cast light on the physical role of parametric conversion model terms, wave-structure scattering model terms, nonlinear terms, spherical expansion terms and their effects on the radial evolution of turbulent energies in high-speed solar wind streams.