Turbulent Cascade Rate Versus Heating Need in the Inner Heliosphere: A Kolmogorov Estimate at Three Distances

Whether solar wind turbulence dissipates enough energy to explain the wind's non-adiabatic temperature profile is a quantitative question about a rate. This study estimates the cascade rate with the Kolmogorov expression, density times the cube of the fluctuation amplitude divided by the correlation length, at 0.1, 0.3 and 1 AU using published-scale amplitudes and lengths. The volumetric rate falls from 1.35e-11 watts per cubic metre at 0.1 AU through 1.50e-13 at 0.3 AU to 1.96e-15 at 1 AU, a drop by a factor of 6912 across the interval. Per proton, the available power falls from 0.28 electronvolts per second at 0.1 AU to 0.002 electronvolts per second at 1 AU. Compared with the mean heating rate the temperature profile requires, the near-Sun cascade is comfortably sufficient while the 1 AU value is marginal, so the estimate supports distributed heating weighted strongly toward small distances. The study is simulated and computed, not measured.