The Interaction of Coronal Mass Ejections with Alfvénic Turbulence

Abstract

We provide a first attempt to understand the interaction between Alfvén wave turbulence, kinetic instabilities and temperature anisotropies in the environment of a fast coronal mass ejection (CME) near the Sun. The impact of a fast CME on the solar corona causes turbulent energy, thermal energy and dissipative heating to increase by orders of magnitude, and produces conditions suitable for a host of kinetic instabilities. We study these CME-induced effects with the recently developed Alfvén Wave Solar Model, with which we are able to self-consistently simulate the turbulent energy transport and dissipation as well as isotropic electron heating and anisotropic proton heating. Furthermore, the model also offers the capability to address the effects of fire hose, mirror mode, and cyclotron kinetic instabilities on proton energy partitioning all in a global-scale numerical simulation. We find amplified turbulent energy in the CME sheath, along with strong wave reflection at the shock combine to cause wave dissipation rates to increase by more than a factor of 100. In contrast, wave energy is greatly diminished by adiabatic expansion in the flux rope. Finally, we find proton temperature anisotropies are limited by kinetic instabilities to a level consistent with solar wind observations.