Nonclassical viscosity and resistivity of the solar wind plasma

Abstract

In this paper we have estimated typical viscosity and resistivity of the solar wind using turbulence phenomenology rather than Branskii's [1965] formalism. Since the solar wind is a collisionless plasma, in this paper we have assumed that the dissipation in the solar wind occurs at the proton gyroradius through wave-particle interactions. Using this dissipation length scale and the dissipation rates calculated using MHD turbulence phenomenology [Verma et al., 1995], we estimate the viscosity and resistivity. The resistivity has been recalculated using anomalous scattering time. We find that all of our transport quantities are several orders of magnitude higher that those calculated using classical theories of Branginskii [1965].