The Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere and Heliosheath
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Richardson_The Solar Wind.pdf
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Author(s)
Richardson, John D.
Burlaga, L. F.
Date Issued
September 2011
Journal
Space Science Reviews
Publisher
Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
Citation
Richardson, J.D. and L.F. Burlaga. "The Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere and Heliosheath." Space Science Reviews,Space Sci Rev (June 2013) 176:1-4, pp.217–235.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The solar wind environment has a large influence on the transport of cosmic rays.
This chapter discusses the observations of the solar wind plasma and magnetic field in the
outer heliosphere and the heliosheath. In the supersonic solar wind, interaction regions with
large magnetic fields form barriers to cosmic ray transport. This effect, the “CR-B” relationship,
has been quantified and is shown to be valid everywhere inside the termination shock
(TS). In the heliosheath, this relationship breaks down, perhaps because of a change in the
nature of the turbulence. Turbulence is compressive in the heliosheath, whereas it was noncompressive
in the solar wind. The plasma pressure in the outer heliosphere is dominated
by the pickup ions which gain most of the flow energy at the TS. The heliosheath plasma
and magnetic field are highly variable on scales as small as ten minutes. The plasma flow
turns away from the nose roughly as predicted, but the radial speeds at Voyager 1 are much
less than those at Voyager 2, which is not understood. Despite predictions to the contrary,
magnetic reconnection is not an important process in the inner heliosheath with only one
observed occurrence to date.
MIT Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9825-5
