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Register a new userOn the Origin of Otho-Gardenhose Heliospheric Flux
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Added by
Mike Lockwood Prof.
Publication date
2019
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Parker spiral theory predicts the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) will have components of opposite polarity radially toward the Sun and tangentially antiparallel to the solar rotation (i.e. in GSE coordinates, with Bx/By<0). This theory explains the average orientation of the HMF very well but does not predict orthogardenhose (OGH) flux with BX/BY>0 that is often observed. We here study the occurrence and structure of OGH flux, as seen in near-Earth space (r=1AU) and by the Helios spacecraft at 0.29<r<1AU, in order to evaluate the contributions to OGH flux generation of the various mechanisms and factors that are not accounted for in Parker spiral theory. We study the loss of OGH flux with increasing averaging timescale between 16 seconds and 100 hours and so determine its spectrum of scale sizes. OGH flux at sunspot minimum is shown to be more common than at sunspot maximum and caused by smaller-scale structure in the HMF, with a mode temporal scale at a fixed point of 10hrs compared to 40hrs. OGH generated by rotating the HMF through the radial direction is also shown to differ in its spectrum of scale sizes from that generated by rotating the HMF through the tangential direction: the former does not contribute to the excess open heliospheric flux at a given r but the latter does. We show that roughly half of the HMF deflection from the ideal Parker spiral giving OGH at Earth occurs at r below 0.3AU. We highlight some questions which can be addressed by the Parker Solar Probe mission which will study the HMF down to r=0.046AU.
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In this study, we evaluate a coronal mass ejection (CME) arrival prediction tool that utilizes the wide-angle observations made by STEREOs heliospheric imagers (HI). The unsurpassable advantage of these imagers is the possibility to observe the evolution and propagation of a CME from close to the Sun out to 1 AU and beyond. We believe that by exploiting this capability, instead of relying on coronagraph observations only, it is possible to improve todays CME arrival time predictions. The ELlipse Evolution model based on HI observations (ELEvoHI) assumes that the CME frontal shape within the ecliptic plane is an ellipse, and allows the CME to adjust to the ambient solar wind speed, i.e. it is drag-based. ELEvoHI is used to perform ensemble simulations by varying the CME frontal shape within given boundary conditions that are consistent with the observations made by HI. In this work, we evaluate different set-ups of the model by performing hindcasts for 15 well-defined isolated CMEs that occurred when STEREO was near L4/5, between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2011. In this way, we find a mean absolute error of between $6.2pm7.9$ h and $9.9pm13$ h depending on the model set-up used. ELEvoHI is specified for using data from future space weather missions carrying HIs located at L5 or L1. It can also be used with near real-time STEREO-A HI beacon data to provide CME arrival predictions during the next $sim7$ years when STEREO-A is observing the Sun-Earth space.
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