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ABSTRACT In this work, we find empirical evidence that the scale-dependent statistical properties of solar wind and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence can be described in terms of a family of parametric probability distribution functions (PDFs) known as Normal Inverse Gaussian (NIG). Understanding these PDFs is one of the most important goals in turbulence theory, as they are inherently connected to the intermittent properties of solar wind turbulence. We investigate the properties of PDFs of Elsasser increments based on a large statistical sample from solar wind observations and high-resolution numerical simulations of MHD turbulence. In order to measure the PDFs and their corresponding properties, three experiments are presented: fast and slow solar wind for experimental data and a simulation of reduced MHD (RMHD) turbulence. Conditional statistics on a 23-yr-long sample of WIND data near 1 au and high-resolution pseudo-spectral simulation of steadily driven RMHD turbulence on a $2048^3$ mesh are used to construct scale-dependent PDFs. The empirical PDFs are fitted to NIG distributions, which depend on four free parameters. Our analysis shows that NIG distributions accurately capture the evolution of the PDFs, with scale-dependent parameters, from large scales characterized by a Gaussian distribution, turning to exponential tails within the inertial range and stretched exponentials at dissipative scales. We also show that empirically-measured NIG parameters exhibit well-defined scaling properties that are similar across the three empirical data sets, which may be indicative of universal behaviour. 

Abstract In this Letter we investigate the dependency with scale of the empirical probability distribution functions (PDF) of Elsasser increments using large sets ofWINDdata (collected between 1995 and 2017) near 1 au. The empirical PDF are compared to the ones obtained from high-resolution numerical simulations of steadily driven, homogeneous reduced MHD turbulence on a 2048³rectangular mesh. A large statistical sample of Alfvénic increments is obtained by using conditional analysis based on the solar wind average properties. The PDF tails obtained from observations and numerical simulations are found to have exponential behavior in the inertial range, with an exponential decrement that satisfies power laws of the formα_l∝l^−μ, wherelis the scale size, withμbetween 0.17 and 0.25 for observations and 0.43 for simulations. PDF tails were extrapolated assuming their exponential behavior extends to arbitrarily large increments in order to determine structure function scaling laws at very high orders. Our results point to potentially universal scaling laws governing the PDF of Elsasser increments and to an alternative approach to investigate high-order statistics in solar wind observations. 

Abstract In this Letter, we report observations of magnetic switchback (SB) features near 1 au using data from the Wind spacecraft. These features appear to be strikingly similar to the ones observed by the Parker Solar Probe mission closer to the Sun: namely, one-sided spikes (or enhancements) in the solar-wind bulk speed V that correlate/anticorrelate with the spikes seen in the radial-field component B R . In the solar-wind streams that we analyzed, these specific SB features near 1 au are associated with large-amplitude Alfvénic oscillations that propagate outward from the Sun along a local background (prevalent) magnetic field B 0 that is nearly radial. We also show that, when B 0 is nearly perpendicular to the radial direction, the large-amplitude Alfvénic oscillations display variations in V that are two sided (i.e., V alternately increases and decreases depending on the vector Δ B = B − B 0 ). As a consequence, SBs may not always appear as one-sided spikes in V , especially at larger heliocentric distances where the local background field statistically departs from the radial direction. We suggest that SBs can be well described by large-amplitude Alfvénic fluctuations if the field rotation is computed with respect to a well-determined local background field that, in some cases, may deviate from the large-scale Parker field. 

We investigate the validity of Taylor’s hypothesis (TH) in the analysis of velocity and magnetic field fluctuations in Alfvénic solar wind streams measured by Parker Solar Probe (PSP) during the first four encounters. The analysis is based on a recent model of the spacetime correlation of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, which has been validated in high-resolution numerical simulations of strong reduced MHD turbulence. We use PSP velocity and magnetic field measurements from 24 h intervals selected from each of the first four encounters. The applicability of TH is investigated by measuring the parameter ϵ  =  δu 0 /√2 V ⊥ , which quantifies the ratio between the typical speed of large-scale fluctuations, δu 0 , and the local perpendicular PSP speed in the solar wind frame, V ⊥ . TH is expected to be applicable for ϵ ≲ 0.5 when PSP is moving nearly perpendicular to the local magnetic field in the plasma frame, irrespective of the Alfvén Mach number M A = V SW ∕ V A , where V SW and V A are the local solar wind and Alfvén speed, respectively. For the four selected solar wind intervals, we find that between 10 and 60% of the time, the parameter ϵ is below 0.2 and the sampling angle (between the spacecraft velocity in the plasma frame and the local magnetic field) is greater than 30°. For angles above 30°, the sampling direction is sufficiently oblique to allow one to reconstruct the reduced energy spectrum E ( k ⊥ ) of magnetic fluctuations from its measured frequency spectra. The spectral indices determined from power-law fits of the measured frequency spectrum accurately represent the spectral indices associated with the underlying spatial spectrum of turbulent fluctuations in the plasma frame. Aside from a frequency broadening due to large-scale sweeping that requires careful consideration, the spatial spectrum can be recovered to obtain the distribution of fluctuation’s energy across scales in the plasma frame. 

This white paper is on the HMCS Firefly mission concept study. Firefly focuses on the global structure and dynamics of the Sun's interior, the generation of solar magnetic fields, the deciphering of the solar cycle, the conditions leading to the explosive activity, and the structure and dynamics of the corona as it drives the heliosphere.