Resonant Heating of Ions by Parallel Propagating Alfvén Waves in Solar Coronal Holes

Resonant heating of H, O+5, and Mg+9 by parallel propagating ion cyclotron Alfven waves in solar coronal holes at a heliocentric distance is studied using the heating rate derived from the quasilinear theory. It is shown that the particle-AlfVen-wave interaction is a significant microscopic process. The temperatures of the ions are rapidly increased up to the observed order in only microseconds, which implies that simply inserting the quasilinear heating rate into the fluid/MHD energy equation to calculate the radial dependence of ion temperatures may cause errors as the time scales do not match. Different species ions are heated by Alfven waves with a power law spectrum in approximately a mass order. To heat O+5 over Mg+9 as measured by the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) in the solar coronal hole at a region ≥1.9.R, the energy density of Alfven waves with a frequency close to the O+5-cyclotron frequency must be at least double of that at the Mg+9-cyclotron frequency. With an appropriate wa