On heating of solar wind protons by the parametric decay of large-amplitude Alfvén waves

Comişel, Horia; Nariyuki, Yasuhiro; Narita, Yasuhito; Motschmann, Uwe

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-1647-2018

Articles | Volume 36, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-1647-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-1647-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 36, issue 6

ANGEO Communicates

|

13 Dec 2018

ANGEO Communicates |

| 13 Dec 2018

On heating of solar wind protons by the parametric decay of large-amplitude Alfvén waves

Horia Comişel, Yasuhiro Nariyuki, Yasuhito Narita, and Uwe Motschmann

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Dec 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Feb 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Feb 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to referee comments', Horia Comisel, 16 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Referee report', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Feb 2018
- AC2: 'Reply to referee comments', Horia Comisel, 16 Apr 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (25 Apr 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

AR by Horia Comisel on behalf of the Authors (26 Apr 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Jun 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (13 Jun 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I thank the authors for their positive responses to my comments. The revised manuscript is definitely improved, but I am sorry to report that I have problems with some of the revised material. Therefore, I feel it is necessary to request another revision of the manuscript.

Abstract: Replace the second and third sentences with “Three simulations with the same physics are carried out with spatial variations in one dimension, two dimensions, and three dimensions (3D); comparison shows that the 3D simulation yields the strongest proton heating. The protons are heated parallel…”
Page 1, line 3: Replace “The comparison made among different spatial dimensions proves” with “Comparison is made among one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional simulations, showing that”.
Page 1, line 3: Replace “proves” with “demonstrates”.
Page 1, line 4: Replace “more efficient” with “the strongest proton”.
Page 1, line 4: Replace “Plasma is” with “Protons are”.
Page 1, line 13 and several other locations: Replace “plasma heating” with “proton heating”. “Plasma heating” implies both ions and electrons are heated, whereas only proton heating is described here.
Page 2, line 2: Replace “outwards” with “away from”.
Page 2, line 11: Replace “plasma” with “proton”.
Page 2, line 18: Replace “prove” with “show”.
Page 2, line 22: Replace “plasmas” with “ions”.
Page 2, line 27: Replace “plasma” with “proton”.
Page 3, line 2: The properties of the 1D and 2D runs should be clarified: “In the one-dimensional box spatial variations are allowed only in directions parallel and antiparallel to the background magnetic field, whereas in the two-dimensional simulation spatial variations are allowed in both the parallel/antiparallel direction and one perpendicular direction.”
Page 3, lines 13-15: Delete “is not irrelevant from the solar wind studies. In fact..the solar corona” and simply say “is relevant for the solar corona and inner heliosphere.”
Page 3, line 21: Replace “waves” with “wave”.
Page 5 lines 12-14: The terms “rigid shifted” and “rigid displacement” are unclear. The t=0 distributions in the top row suggest a donut shape; perhaps that term might be used. Also, Figure 1 of Verscharen and Marsch (2011) is very different from the top row of Figure 3. Please explain.
Page 6, line 11: Replace “The more efficient heating of plasma” with “The stronger heating of protons”.
Page 6, line 16: Replace “plasma” with “proton”.
Page 6, lines 28-29: Delete the sentence beginning “A detailed spectral analyzing…” Promises of future work are inappropriate in a scientific manuscript.
Page 6, line 33: Replace “more efficient” with “most strongly”.
Page 7, line 2: Replace “plasma” with “protons”.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (09 Jul 2018)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (05 Aug 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

AR by Horia Comisel on behalf of the Authors (14 Sep 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Oct 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (18 Oct 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript presents a 3D hybrid simulation of the parametric decay
of an Alfven cyclotron wave in a low beta pasma (0.01).
Most of these 3D simulation results seems to be similar to previous
1D and 2D results in many respects. The exception is much larger
perpendicular heating in 3D compared to 1D and 2D results.
This findings is very interesting and makes the manuscript relevant
for AG. However, no attempt is made to find out why such a big difference
exists between 3D and 2D (1D geometry is clearly very different). Furthermore,
there are some issues with the numerical model and the manuscript contains
some erroneous claims. Consequently, the manuscript needs a major revision.

The presented results have numerical issues: the used spatial resolution (=1
d_i) is insufficient to resolve the proton gyroradius (rho_i ~ 0.1 d_i) so that
the presented results are likely comparable to multi-fluid ones. This should
be discussed. It is also necessary to include all the relevant physical and
numerical parameters used for the (1D, 2D, and 3D) simulations.

"... the plasma heating by the Alfvén wave can occur through generation and
steepening of magnetosonic waves."
The meaning of this is not clear - do you mean that the heating goes through
secondary magnetosonic waves?

"In earlier studies concerning the parametric decay in low beta plasmas (e.g.,
Del Zanna et al., 2001), at the non-linear saturation time, the cross-helicity
σc becomes zero, and the wave energy is assumed to be equally shared by the
forward-propagating Alfvén pump wave and the backward-propagating Alfvén
daughter waves."
At least in the case of Del Zanna et al. (2001) this claim is false. The cross-helicity
tends to change from positive to negative cross-helicity values for low beta simulations.

"The growth rates for the moderate oblique daughter waves scales by cos theta,
accordingly to former studies (e.g., Del Zanna et al., 2001; Matteini et al.,
2010a), where theta is the angle of propagation with respect to the mean
magnetic field."
This is wrong. Del Zanna et al and Matteini et al investigated the dependence of
the growth rate on the angle between the magnetic field B and the wave vector
of the mother wave k_0. The dependence on the angle between B and the wave vector
of the daughter wave k_1 was numerically studied by Vinas and Goldstein (1991);
as far as this referees knows there are no analytical or numerically fitted formula
for this.

Fig. 3: The distribution functions clearly includes the Alfven wave velocity component.
It would be better to suppress this.

What is the definition of the temperatures in Fig. 5? Does it include the Alfven wave velocity
component as in the case of Fig. 3? If yes it would be better to suppress this. Here we are
interested in temperatures and not in effective temperatures.

With respect to the difference between 2D and 3D results: at least some quantification
of the difference between these results (spectrum/amplitude of oblique modes) is necessary.
Vinas and Goldstein (1991) show that more channels of parametric instability exist when
allowing for oblique daughter waves. Are some of them particularly enhanced in 3D with respect to 2D?
Could this heating be of a numerical origin?

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ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (18 Oct 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

AR by Horia Comisel on behalf of the Authors (15 Nov 2018) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Nov 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (03 Dec 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (04 Dec 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

AR by Horia Comisel on behalf of the Authors (04 Dec 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (04 Dec 2018) by Yoshizumi Miyoshi

AR by Horia Comisel on behalf of the Authors (05 Dec 2018)

Short summary

Space plasmas are assumed to be highly active and dynamic systems including waves and turbulence. Electromagnetic waves such as Alfven waves interact with one another, producing daughter waves. In our study based on three-dimensional hybrid simulations, we emphasize the role of obliquely propagating daughter waves in particle heating in low-temperature (or low-beta) plasmas. The evolutions of plasma turbulence, wave dissipation, and heating are essential problems in astrophysics.