Sources of the solar wind at solar activity maximum

Details Sources of the solar wind at solar activity maximum Sources of the solar wind at solar activity maximum

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002jgra..107.1488n&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research (Space Physics), Volume 107, Issue A12, pp. SSH 13-1, CiteID 1488, DOI 10.1029/2001JA000306

Physics

31

Interplanetary Physics: Sources Of The Solar Wind, Interplanetary Physics: Solar Wind Plasma, Interplanetary Physics: Solar Cycle Variations (7536)

Scientific paper

The photospheric sources of solar wind observed by the Ulysses and ACE spacecraft from 1998 to early 2001 are determined through a two-step mapping process. Solar wind speed measured at the spacecraft is used in a ballistic model to determine a foot point on a source surface at a solar distance of 2.5 solar radii. A potential-field source-surface model is then used to trace the field and flow from the source surface to the photosphere. Comparison of the polarity of the measured interplanetary field with the polarity of the photospheric source region shows good agreement for spacecraft latitudes equatorward of 60°. At higher southern latitudes, the mapping predicts that Ulysses should have observed only outward directed magnetic fields, whereas both polarities were observed. A detailed analysis is performed on four of the solar rotations for which the mapped and observed polarities were in generally good agreement. For those rotations, the solar wind mapped to both coronal holes and active regions. These findings for a period of high solar activity differ from the findings of a similar study of the solar wind in 1994-1995 when solar activity was very low. At solar minimum the fastest wind mapped to the interior of large polar coronal holes while slower wind mapped to the boundaries of those holes or to smaller low-latitude coronal holes. For the data examined in the present study, neither spacecraft detected wind from the small polar coronal holes when they existed and the speed was never as high as that observed by Ulysses at solar minimum. The principal difference between the solar wind from coronal holes and from active regions is that the O7+/O6+ ion ratio is lower for the coronal hole flow, but not as low as in the polar coronal hole flow at solar minimum. Furthermore, the active-region flows appear to be organized into several substreams unlike the more monolithic structure of flows from coronal holes. The boundaries between plasma flows from neighboring sources are marked by large magnetic holes, plasma sheets, and low entropy, independent of whether the sources have the same or opposite magnetic polarities. The evolution of solar wind properties between 1 AU and the 1.6-5.4 AU solar distance of Ulysses is also briefly discussed.

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