The solar wind in the outer heliosphere
Name
Richardson_The Solar.pdf
Size
1.01 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1f7d1fe64da5521653e6b7fd9742e918
Author(s)
Richardson, John D.
Stone, E. C.
Date Issued
October 2008
Journal
Space Science Reviews
Publisher
Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
Citation
Richardson, J. D., and E. C. Stone. “The Solar Wind in the Outer Heliosphere.” Space Science Reviews 143 (2008): 7-20.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The solar wind evolves as it moves outward due to interactions with both itself and with the circum-heliospheric interstellar medium. The speed is, on average, constant out to 30 AU, then starts a slow decrease due to the pickup of interstellar neutrals. These neutrals reduce the solar wind speed by about 20% before the termination shock (TS). The pickup ions heat the thermal plasma so that the solar wind temperature increases outside 20–30 AU. Solar cycle effects are important; the solar wind pressure changes by a factor of 2 over a solar cycle and the structure of the solar wind is modified by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) near solar maximum. The first direct evidences of the TS were the observations of streaming energetic particles by both Voyagers 1 and 2 beginning about 2 years before their respective TS crossings. The second evidence was a slowdown in solar wind speed commencing 80 days before Voyager 2 crossed the TS. The TS was a weak, quasi-perpendicular shock which transferred the solar wind flow energy mainly to the pickup ions. The heliosheath has large fluctuations in the plasma and magnetic field on time scales of minutes to days.
MIT Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-008-9443-z
