Speaker
Description
First Name: Jade
Last Name: Touresse
Email Address: jade.touresse@lpp.polytechnique.fr
Affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas, Sorbonne Université, CNRS
All Authors: J. Touresse, E. Pariat, C. Froment, V. Aslanyan, P. F. Wyper, L. Seyfritz
Abstract: Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has recently detected widespread localised magnetic deflections in the young solar wind, known as switchbacks. Rarely observed near Earth, these features have spurred investigations into their origin. A prominent theory is that switchbacks originate in the lower corona through magnetic reconnection processes, linked to solar jet activity. Jets are impulsive phenomena, observed at various scales, in different solar atmosphere layers, associated with the release of magnetic twist and helicity. To investigate this, we ran 3D Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) parametric simulations of solar-jet-like events using the Adaptatively Refined MHD Solver (ARMS) code. Based on the model of Pariat et al. 2009, the simulations explore how variations in the atmospheric plasma β influence jet dynamics and propagation under different coronal and solar wind conditions, including fully sub-Alfvénic regimes and varying Alfvén surfaces. The results reveal that U-loops, prevalent at jet onset, do not propagate in the low-beta corona, preventing full magnetic reversals from reaching the super-Alfvénic wind. Using a simulated PSP trajectory through the magnetic wavefront of the jet, we produced synthetic in-situ velocity and magnetic field data of a switchback along with a 3D visualization of the magnetic geometry. Two distinct field-line configurations were identified, whose evolution depends strongly on the surrounding plasma β. Overall, these results demonstrate that jet-like events can generate and propagate magnetic deflections, shedding light on the possible formation processes of switchbacks.