Publication Date:
2011-07-28
Description:
Langmuir waves in the solar wind are known to be the origin of many types of solar radio emissions. In situ observations have shown that the most intense Langmuir waves often appear as wave packets. Several models have been proposed to explain this localization, such as kinetic localization and eigenmode formation. In the present paper we investigate the role of background turbulence on the size of the Langmuir wave packets through modeling of both quasi-planar growth in constant density regions and eigenmode growth in density wells. We compute both numerically and analytically the growth of the waves, the size of the wave packets, and the amplitude of these packets. Our theoretical results are compared to the in situ measurements of Ulysses and STEREO and appear to be consistent with the measured amplitude distributions.
Print ISSN:
0148-0227
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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