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Coles & Esser 1992
Coles, W.A. and Esser, R. (1992). An observational limit to the amplitude of Alfvén waves in the solar wind and comparison with an acceleration model. Journal of Geophysical Research 97: doi: 10.1029/92JA01572. issn: 0148-0227.

Measurements of angular scattering of cosmic radio sources observed near the solar limb indicate that the density microstructure can be highly anisotropic (Armstrong et al., 1990). Here we point out that Alfv¿n waves, which are known to be present in the solar wind, will tend to isotropize the angular scattering measurements. Thus such observations set an upper bound on the amplitude of Alfv¿n waves in the scattering region. Recently measurements of velocity versus distance were made near the Sun (using interplanetary scintillations). In about half of the observed streams the velocity profiles were found to be consistent with an MHD model of the solar wind in which Alfv¿n waves are used to increase the flow velocities (Coles et al., 1991). In this paper we demonstrate that the Alfv¿n wave amplitudes necessary to match the measured velocities are consistent with the bounds derived here from angular scattering observations. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1992

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Abstract

Keywords
Interplanetary Physics, Plasma waves and turbulence, Interplanetary Physics, Solar wind plasma, Radio Science, Radio wave propagation
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
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American Geophysical Union
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