Solar Wind Variability: from Macro to Micro Scales

Abstract:

Several decades of in-situ observations by spacecraft unraveled the complex nature of the variability of solar wind magnetic field and plasma parameters. These fluctuations range from scales of the order of the solar rotation period to the smallest scales of the order of the ion and electron characteristic scale lengths. Some of these fluctuations belong to coronal transients, others to propagating modes and others are simply due to inhomogeneities and structures advected by the wind across the observer.
In this talk I'll provide a short overview of the state of art of our current interpretation of the complex phenomenology observed so far, also in view of the next solar missions Solar Orbiter and SPP. I will start describing the solar wind large scale structure and its connection to the low corona. I will continue through the MHD regime, where turbulence energy is nonlinearly transferred to smaller and smaller scales, to end up at kinetic scales where this energy eventually is dissipated.