Multipoint Analysis of Meso-scale Structures in the Ambient Solar Wind: STEREO-A, -B, and L1 Observations

Details Multipoint Analysis of Meso-scale Structures in the Ambient Solar Wind: STEREO-A, -B, and L1 Observations Multipoint Analysis of Meso-scale Structures in the Ambient Solar Wind: STEREO-A, -B, and L1 Observations

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsh12a..06s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SH12A-06

Physics

2102 Corotating Streams, 2164 Solar Wind Plasma, 2169 Solar Wind Sources, 7511 Coronal Holes

Scientific paper

We explore sources of apparent time-dependence of meso-scale structures (those lasting two to three days and less) in the ambient solar wind through analysis of measurements from STEREO-A, -B, and L1 spacecraft (WIND, ACE, and SOHO). In early 2008, stable corotating interaction regions and high-speed streams provided excellent boundaries and features for co-registering the large-scale, corotating solar wind observed by several heliospheric spacecraft separated in solar orbital phase near 1 AU. During this period, STEREO-B (located 23 degrees behind the Earth in heliographic longitude) first observed the large-scale corotating stream structures, followed by the WIND, ACE, and SOHO spacecraft at Earth, then finally by STEREO-A (located 22 degrees ahead of the Earth in heliographic longitude). Conspicuous similarities in the macro-scale solar wind flow dominate the comparison between spacecraft observations and permit us to time-adjust the observed flow features reasonably well by assuming a simple corotating solar wind source. While the co-registered, large-scale solar wind structure agrees well, mesoscale flow features can exhibit large measured differences at the various spacecraft. We focus on one such interesting feature which exhibits apparent time dependence. Though this few-day-long, significant flow speed event is observed by the PLASTIC experiments on both STEREO-A and STEREO-B, it is not seen at the L1 spacecraft which the STEREO spacecraft bracket in space and time. We explore potential sources of the apparent time dependence of this meso-scale feature. Latitudinal differences in the multipoint measurements is one source that could account for the apparent mesoscale flow structure variability. We also explore explicit time variation of the solar wind's source, by analyzing relevant coronal holes observed simultaneously by the STEREO spacecraft imagers. This event and analysis underscores that multipoint heliospheric observations and analysis reveals the existence of mesoscale structure in the solar wind and can be used to constrain its possible source(s).

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