Experimental Investigation of Ion Heating Due to Alfven Wave Driven Turbulence

West Virginia University Research Corporation, Morgantown WV

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed reseach concerns a laboratory investigation of ion heating in the acceleration region of the fast solar wind. A number of mechanisms for ion heating in the fast solar wind have been proposed and this project will examine the possibility that either counter-propagating, low-frequency, Alfven waves generate a turbulent cascade that heats ions by exciting higher frequency waves that damp on the ions or that the ions are directly heated by ion-cyclotron damping of Alfven waves.