ИСТИНА

Despite the existence of main sources of accelerated particles in the solar wind such as flares and shocks, turbulence and associated coherent structures may be responsible for heating and particle energization throughout the heliosphere. Recent studies convincingly link turbulence, intermittency and magnetic reconnection and show the necessity of a complex approach to investigation of these phenomena. Observations of energetic particle enhancements in turbulent wakes of interplanetary shocks, near reconnecting current sheets and within magnetic cavities filled with magnetic islands support theoretical expectations of particle energization in the presence of coherent structures in the solar wind. It has been shown that such energetic particle enhancements may be as intense as ordinary solar energetic particle events. Therefore, the investigation of all possible manifestations of turbulence is essential for better understanding of local processes of particle acceleration in the solar wind. General characteristics of turbulence in the solar wind plasma are usually studied via the analysis of the power spectrum of magnetic and plasma fluctuations, and more detailed studies suggest using the partial variance of increments method. Such studies are predominantly undertaken at 1 AU, and there has been only a limited number of attempts of understanding the spatial evolution of intermittency from in situ observations of magnetic and plasma fluctuations. We report first results of the “Current Sheets, Turbulence, Structures and Particle Acceleration in the Heliosphere” project (ISSI team 405) on the evolution of intermittent turbulence with heliocentric distance and latitude, up to 5.4 AU ( http://www.issibern.ch/teams/structpartaccel/). The role of current sheets, magnetic reconnection and processes in the turbulent neighborhood of reconnecting current sheets in initial and secondary particle acceleration throughout the heliosphere is discussed. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa7686, https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/827/2/122