Limits on Alpha Particle Temperature Anisotropy and Differential Flow from Kinetic Instabilities: Solar Wind Observations

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that the observed temperature anisotropies of protons and alpha particles in the solar wind are constrained by theoretical thresholds for pressure-anisotropy-driven instabilities such as the Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron (A/IC) and fast-magnetosonic/whistler (FM/W) instabilities. In this letter, we use a long period of in-situ measurements provided by the {\em Wind} spacecraft's Faraday cups to investigate the combined constraint on the alpha-proton differential flow velocity and the alpha-particle temperature anisotropy due to A/IC and FM/W instabilities. We show that the majority of the data are constrained to lie within the region of parameter space in which A/IC and FM/W waves are either stable or have extremely low growth rates. In the minority of observed cases in which the growth rate of the A/IC (FM/W) instability is comparatively large, we find relatively higher values of $T_{\perp\alpha}/T_{\perp p}$ ($T_{\parallel\alpha}/T_{\parallel p}$) when alpha-proton differential flow velocity is small, where $T_{\perp\alpha}$ and $T_{\perp p}$ ($T_{\parallel\alpha}$ and $T_{\parallel p}$) are the perpendicular (parallel) temperatures of alpha particles and protons. We conjecture that this observed feature might arise from preferential alpha-particle heating which can drive the alpha particles beyond the instability thresholds.