SUNWARD-PROPAGATING ALFVÉNIC FLUCTUATIONS OBSERVED IN THE HELIOSPHERE
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Li-2016-SUNWARD-PROPAGATING.pdf
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Author(s)
Li, Hui
He, Jiansen
Belcher, John Winston
Wang, Chi, 1967-
Richardson, John D.
Date Issued
June 2016
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Li, Hui et al. “SUNWARD-PROPAGATING ALFVÉNIC FLUCTUATIONS OBSERVED IN THE HELIOSPHERE.” The Astrophysical Journal 824.1 (2016): L2. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The mixture/interaction of anti-sunward-propagating Alfvénic fluctuations (AFs) and sunward-propagating Alfvénic fluctuations (SAFs) is believed to result in the decrease of the Alfvénicity of solar wind fluctuations with increasing heliocentric distance. However, SAFs are rarely observed at 1 au and solar wind AFs are found to be generally outward. Using the measurements from Voyager 2 and Wind, we perform a statistical survey of SAFs in the heliosphere inside 6 au. We first report two SAF events observed by Voyager 2. One is in the anti-sunward magnetic sector with a strong positive correlation between the fluctuations of magnetic field and solar wind velocity. The other one is in the sunward magnetic sector with a strong negative magnetic field—velocity correlation. Statistically, the percentage of SAFs increases gradually with heliocentric distance, from about 2.7% at 1.0 au to about 8.7% at 5.5 au. These results provide new clues for understanding the generation mechanism of SAFs.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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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.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/824/1/l2
