Scale-Invariance and Intermittency in the Solar Wind Alfvénic Turbulence: Wind Observations

In the "Alfvénic" regime, i.e. for frequencies below the local proton cyclotron frequency, solar wind MHD turbulence exhibits what appears like an inertial domain, with power-law spectra and scale-invariance, suggesting as in fluid turbulence, a nonlinear energy cascade from the large "energy containing" scales towards the small scales where dissipation by kinetic effects is presumed to act. However, the intermittent character of solar wind fluctuations is much more important than in ordinary fluids. Indeed, the fluctuations consist of a mixture of random fluctuations and small-scale "singular" or coherent structures. This intermittency modifies significantly the scaling exponents of actual power-law spectra, which are directly related to the physical nature of the energy cascade taking place in the solar wind. The identification of the most intermittent structures and their relation to dissipation represents then a crucial problem in the framework of turbulence. We present here a new approach to study the scaling laws and intermittency based on the use of Wavelet transforms on simultaneous WIND 3s resolution particle and magnetic field data from the 3DP and the MFi experiments respectively. Using the Haar wavelet transform, spectra and structure functions are calculated. We show that this powerful technique allows: (1) for a systematic elimination of intermittency effects on spectra and structure functions and thus for a clear determination of the actual scaling properties in the inertial range, and (2) for a direct and systematic identification of the most active, singular structures responsible for the intermittency in the solar wind. We finally discuss the various effects which may be important for the formation of these structures in the absence of collisions.