Open AccessA new fluid scheme for weakly collisional plasmas: 2. The case of solar wind
Author(s) -
Pietrini P.,
TorricelliCiamponi G.,
Chiuderi C.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2012ja018036
Subject(s) - solar wind , physics , plasma , computational physics , boundary value problem , symmetry (geometry) , solar physics , range (aeronautics) , statistical physics , mechanics , astrophysics , quantum mechanics , aerospace engineering , mathematics , geometry , engineering
Chiuderi et al. (2011) (paper 1) investigated the possibility of extending to weakly collisional plasmas the new fluid scheme recently developed by Chen et al. (2000) for neutral gases. Paper 1 established the conditions under which such an extension is feasible and identified the solar wind as a good candidate to test the new theory. Such a test is performed in the present paper, where we actually build a model for the fast solar wind and compare it with the available data. We define the basic assumptions adopted: steadiness, spherical symmetry, and neglect of magnetic field and of minor ions. We limit our treatment to the range 2–215 R ⊙ to cover the details of the transition from collisional to collisionless regimes, excluding the low corona and the chromosphere that appear to be far too complex to be described by our simple model. We present a detailed discussion concerning the choice of the parameters and boundary conditions entering the model. We then proceed to the actual construction of the model, whose main merit lies in its simplicity: it is a two‐fluid model capable of accounting for both viscosity and thermal conduction, in spite of the very limited number of equations to be solved. We then critically compare our results with the observations and with other recent solar wind models. The level of agreement with the data is quite satisfactory and is comparable with that obtained by more sophisticated models.