Physics
Scientific paper
May 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusmsh21d..08c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #SH21D-08
Physics
2109 Discontinuities, 2111 Ejecta, Driver Gases, And Magnetic Clouds, 2134 Interplanetary Magnetic Fields, 2164 Solar Wind Plasma
Scientific paper
Electrons with energies above about 80 eV at 1 AU continually stream out along magnetic field lines, carrying heat flux away from the Sun. These suprathermal electrons were first used as tracers of magnetic topology to identify coronal mass ejections in the heliosphere (HCMEs). HCMEs usually contain at least some closed magnetic field lines, that is, field lines connected to the Sun at both ends. In this configuration, suprathermal electrons stream in both directions along field lines, creating counterstreaming or bidirectional electron events (BDEs) in spacecraft data. Ongoing studies of BDEs are testing whether the closed magnetic fields in HCMEs gradually open as HCMEs move into the outer heliosphere. This may occur through reconnection with open fields back at the Sun, thus solving the problem of magnetic flux buildup in the heliosphere without disconnecting fields from the Sun. Disconnected fields contain no suprathermal or higher-energy electrons, and observations of this condition are rare. Suprathermal electrons have also been used as tracers for studying the heliospheric current sheet (HCS). Because they always stream away from the Sun along field lines, they are incontrovertible markers of the reversal of field line polarity at the HCS. Electrons streaming parallel to the field mark away polarity, and those streaming antiparallel to the field mark toward polarity, independent of whether the field is locally turned back on itself. Recent studies show that the polarity reversal as revealed in the electron data often does not coincide with the single reversal in magnetic field direction that would be attributed to HCS passage in the absence of electron data. The separation between these signatures, ranging from less than an hour to more than a day, has interesting implications for HCS structure and the relationship between the HCS and HCMEs.
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