Mixing the Solar Wind Proton and Electron Scales: Effects of Electron Temperature Anisotropy on the Oblique Proton Firehose Instability

Abstract: The double adiabatic expansion of the nearly collisionless solar wind plasma creates conditions for the firehose instability to develop and efficiently prevent the further increase of the plasma temperature in the direction parallel to the interplanetary magnetic field. The conditions imposed by the firehose instability have been extensively studied using idealized approaches that ignore the mutual effects of electrons and protons. Recently, more realistic approaches have been proposed that t…