Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration Mechanisms
Abstract
The project goal is to determine whether the magnetic expansion factor plays a physical role in solar wind acceleration or whether it simply serves as a proxy that can be used to distinguish between solar wind with slow (~300 - 500 km/s) and fast (~>650 km/s) speeds. During the period of performance, a methodology has been developed, through which suitable pseudostreamers can be identified and their resulting solar wind speeds can be determined. This is done applying the existing Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA) model output produced with Air Force Data Assimilative Photospheric Flux Transport (ADAPT) input maps, allowing the determination of the time of arrival at the specified spacecraft of the exact parcel of solar wind that left the pseudostreamer. We have shown that the methodology outlined is useful to identify unambiguous cases where spacecrafts like ACE are magnetically connected to pseudostreamers, and it can also be used to compare the field line expansion factors with the associated terminal solar wind speed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 02, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1052928
Entities
People
- Samantha Wallace
- Ylva M. Pihlstrom
Organizations
- University of New Mexico