Flux Ropes and Small-Scale Interplanetary Transients - New Revelations from STEREO/SECCHI

We present scientific results using a new processing pipeline from the SECCHI instrument suite on STEREO-A. This pipeline reduces stellar and F coronal noise to an unprecedented level to where very small and faint solar wind transients can be observed and tracked. This allows the accomplishment of new revelations about small-scale transients and about the anatomy of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) en-route through the inner heliosphere. Our results are from the time period corresponding to the lowest part of the deep minimum of Solar Cycle 23-24 (December 2009 - January 2009) and find a dynamic solar wind even when at its quietest. We identify solar wind puffs and blobs, likely disconnection events, and a number of CMEs, and we track them through the SECCHI suite to distances out to and beyond 1 AU. We are therefore able to unambiguously identify each of their signatures upon their arrival at in-situ spacecraft. For the CMEs we track magnetic flux ropes (called magnetic clouds) back to their coronagraph origins and identify them as the cavity component of the so-called classic three-part CME structure. Finally we track the evolution of the structure of the flux ropes through the heliosphere, and find significant distortion.