CONDITIONED ANALYSIS OF HIGH-LATITUDE SOLAR WIND INTERMITTENCY

The solar wind is a turbulent medium displaying intermittency. Its intermittent features have been widely documented and studied, showing how the intermittent character is different in fast and slow wind. In this paper, a statistical conditioned analysis of the solar wind intermittency for a period of high-latitude fast solar wind is presented. In particular, the intermittent features are investigated as a function of the Alfvenic degree of fluctuations at a given scale. The results show that the main contribution to solar wind intermittency is due to non-Alfvenic structures, while Alfvenic increments are found to be characterized by a smaller level of intermittency than the previous ones. Furthermore, the lifetime statistics of Alfvenic periods are discussed in terms of a multiscale texture of randomly oriented flux tubes.