Unsteady Solar Wind at the Termination Shock and in the Heliosheath
Abstract
The solar wind flow originating from the solar corona is not uniform. There is a large-scale structure of the solar wind which consists of fast, low-density, high-temperature plasma flowing from the Sun’s polar regions and slow streams originating near the magnetic dipole equator. This structure is especially clearly seen during solar minima. As a result of the Sun’s rotation, fast streams catch up and overtake slow streams and corotating interaction regions (CIR) are formed. In this study we analyze the impact of CIRs corresponding to solar cycles 22 and 23 minima on the heliospheric termination shock, the heliosheath, and the heliopause. The CIRs are initialized using the Ulysses observations. It is shown that plasma fluctuations induced by CIRs are identified in the outer heliosphere. Additionally, we use OMNI data to study a three-dimensional evolution of the unsteady solar wind into the inner and outer heliosheath. Numerical results are compared with the Ulysses and Voyager measurements.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMSH21B1815B
- Keywords:
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- 7537 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY / Solar and stellar variability;
- 7833 SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS / Mathematical and numerical techniques