Short-scale variations of the solar wind helium abundance

Abstract

Abrupt changes of the relative He abundance in the solar wind are usually attributed to encounters with boundaries dividing solar wind streams from different sources in the solar corona. This paper presents a systematic study of fast variations of the He abundance that supports the idea that a majority of these variations on short timescales (3-30 s) are generated by in-transit turbulence that is probably driven by the speed difference between the ion species. This turbulence contributes to the solar wind heating and leads to a correlation of the temperature with He abundance. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.