Kinetic Theory and Fast Wind Observations of the Electron Strahl

Abstract: We develop a model for the strahl population in the solar wind – a narrow, low-density and high-energy electron beam centred on the magnetic field direction. Our model is based on the solution of the electron drift-kinetic equation at heliospheric distances where the plasma density, temperature and the magnetic field strength decline as power laws of the distance along a magnetic flux tube. Our solution for the strahl depends on a number of parameters that, in the absence of the analytic solu…