Solar Wind Speed and Temperature Outside 10 AU and the Termination Shock

Details Solar Wind Speed and Temperature Outside 10 AU and the Termination Shock Solar Wind Speed and Temperature Outside 10 AU and the Termination Shock

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufmsh11a0376w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #SH11A-0376

Physics

2124 Heliopause And Solar Wind Termination, 2152 Pickup Ions, 2162 Solar Cycle Variations (7536), 2164 Solar Wind Plasma

Scientific paper

We study the speed V and temperature T of the solar wind in the distant heliosphere obtained from pickup proton magnetohydrodynamic equations that treat interstellar pickup protons and solar wind protons as two distinct proton species. The study uses the 27-day average Omni plasma and magnetic field data as input. We obtain 336 sets of numerical solutions covering the period from the solar minimum of Cycle 20 in 1976 to the maximum of Cycle 23; each represents the extrapolation for the real solar wind conditions at 1 AU to the distant heliosphere following the fluid motion. The result shows that outside 10 AU near the ecliptic V and T at a given r are primarily functions of the 1 AU wind speed. The maximum of the 1 AU wind speed is 615 km/s occurred on March 1989, the minimum at 327 km/s occurred on February 1999. A straight line can be used to represent the relation between V and the 1 AU speed for each given r; and a parabola can represent the relation for T at each given r. These relations are attributed to the accumulated effects of pickup proton process in the distant heliosphere. Because pickup protons are expected to have similar effects on the solar wind at all latitudes on the upwind side of the heliosphere, the relationships for V and T are extended to study the solar cycle and latitudinal variation for the heliocentric distance of the termination shock. Wang and Sheeley have an empirical model to calculate the 1 AU wind speed as a function of latitude and longitude from the observed photospheric field. The calculated latitudinal variation is consistent with the observational results from Ulysses. We use the simulated 1 AU speed to calculate V and T at varying r following the fluid motion. Then we can calculate the solar cycle variation of the shock distance at all latitudes over a 26-year's period. The averaged distance increases with the latitude; from ecliptic to the pole the distance increases by a factor of 2.

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