Closure of multi-fluid and kinetic equations for cyclotron-resonant interactions of solar wind ions with Alfvén waves

Abstract. Based on quasilinear theory, a closure scheme for anisotropic multi-component fluid equations is developed for the wave-particle interactions of ions with electromagnetic Alfvén and ion-cyclotron waves propagating along the mean magnetic field. Acceleration and heating rates are calculated. They may be used in the multi-fluid momentum and energy equations as anomalous transport terms. The corresponding evolution equation for the average wave spectrum is established, and the effective growth/damping rate for the spectrum is calculated. Given a simple power-law spectrum, an anomalous collision frequency can be derived which depends on the slope and average intensity of the spectrum, and on the gyrofrequency and the differential motion (with respect to the wave frame) of the actual ion species considered. The wave-particle interaction terms attain simple forms resembling the ones for collisional friction and temperature anisotropy relaxation (due to pitch angle scattering) with collision rates that are proportional to the gyrofrequency but diminished substantially by the relative wave energy or the fluctuation level with respect the background field. In addition, a set of quasilinear diffusion equations is derived for the reduced (with respect to the perpendicular velocity component) velocity distribution functions (VDFs), as they occur in the wave dispersion equation and the related dielectric function for parallel propagation. These reduced VDFs allow one to describe adequately the most prominent observed features, such as an ion beam and temperature anisotropy, in association with the resonant interactions of the particles with the waves on a kinetic level, yet have the advantage of being only dependent upon the parallel velocity component.