Cranmer, S. R. 2009, "Testing and Refining Models of Slow Solar Wind Acceleration," SHINE 2009 Workshop, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, August 3-7, 2009 (Invited Talk). [Powerpoint slides (1.6 MB) are available.]

ABSTRACT:

It is now well known that the low-speed solar wind appears to be connected with a wide range of source regions in the corona (essentially everything except the largest coronal holes). Evidence is growing for there being specific, measurable differences in the plasma properties of slow wind streams that originate in large quiescent streamers versus those that originate in active regions. These differences are key diagnostics of the physical processes that heat the open-field corona and accelerate the slow wind. This talk will focus on describing recent successes of theoretical models that involve waves and turbulence as the primary driver. However, it is important not to neglect intermittent energy addition from closed-field regions as well. Progress will come both from working out these individual ideas in more detail (i.e., pushing them toward greater accuracy, self-consistency, and predictive power) and from putting multiple ideas together in "sandbox" models that allow the relative contributions of these processes to be determined.