Effects of electrons on the solar wind proton temperature anisotropy

Abstract

Among the kinetic microinstabilities, the firehose instability is one of the most efficient mechanisms to restrict the unlimited increase of temperature anisotropy in the direction of an ambient magnetic field as predicted by adiabatic expansion of collision-poor solar wind. Indeed, the solar wind proton temperature anisotropy detected near 1 AU shows that it is constrained by the marginal firehose condition. Of the two types of firehose instabilities, namely, parallel and oblique, the literature suggests that the solar wind data conform more closely to the marginal oblique firehose condition. In the present work, however, it is shown that the parallel firehose instability threshold is markedly influenced by the presence of anisotropic electrons, such that under some circumstances, the cumulative effects of both electron and proton anisotropies could describe the observation without considering the oblique firehose mode. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..