How to relate the 3D wavevector spectrum of Alfvenic fluctuations to the frequency spectrum observed by a single spacecraft when Taylor's hypothesis is not valid

A longstanding problem is to discover the nature of the three-dimensional (3D) wavevector spectrum of Alfvenic fluctuations in the solar wind. Although some progress has been made using structure function analysis and also the wave telescope technique, we currently have very little knowledge of the scale dependent anisotropy of the fluctuations in wavevector space, a quantity that is central to existing phenomenological theories of MHD turbulence. To make progress in this area, a simple method has been developed that allows the frequency spectrum in the spacecraft frame to be computed for any 3D wavevector spectrum in Fourier space. The technique is based on the well known formula for the doppler shift in a moving medium together with the random phase approximation of turbulence theory. Because the method does not rely on Taylor's hypothesis, it also applies when the Alfven speed is large compared to the solar wind speed, a circumstance that occurs close to the sun at heliocentric distances less than 20 solar radii or so (0.1 AU). Different model wavevector spectra are used to investigate the effects of wavevector anisotropy on single spacecraft measurements. It is shown, for example, that for typical solar wind and Alfven speeds at 1 AU, wavevector spectra that are anisotropic power laws with Goldreich-Sridhar-like scaling can produce spectral exponents in the spacecraft frame that appear unrelated to the power law behaviors in k-space. In particular, a wavevector spectrum with an Iroshnikov-Kraichnan-like spectral index in the perpendicular direction could be seen by a spacecraft observer as a 5/3 spectrum.