The relation between magnetic switchbacks and turbulence in the inner heliosphere

Abstract: We investigate the relation between turbulence and magnetic field switchbacks in the inner heliosphere below 0.5 AU in a distance and scale dependent manner. The analysis is performed by studying the evolution of the magnetic field vector increments and the corresponding rotation distributions, which contain the switchbacks. We find that the rotation distributions evolve in a scale dependent fashion, having the same shape at small scales independent of the radial distance, contrary to at larger scales where the shape evolves with distance. The increments are shown to evolve towards a log-normal shape with increasing radial distance, even though the log-normal fit works quite well at all distances especially at small scales. The rotation distributions are shown to evolve towards the Zhdankin et al. (2012) rotation model moving away from the Sun. The magnetic switchbacks do not appear at any distance as a clear separate population. Our results suggest a scenario in which the evolution of the rotation distributions, including switchbacks, is primarily the result of the expansion driven growth of the fluctuations, which are reshaped into a log-normal distribution by the solar wind turbulence.