Ulysses ESA Guest Investigator


This is one of the five accepted Ulysses ESA Guest Investigator proposals which involves collaboration with the magnetometer team.

Investigation of tangential and rotational discontinuities in the solar wind at high latitude

Prof. F. M. Neubauer

Univeristy of Cologne

Abstract

In the following investigation directional discontinuities in the solar wind, i.e. tangential and rotational discontinuities will be studied using Ulysses magnetic field and SWOOPS plasma data. In conjunction with Helios, Wind and Voyager data the macroscopic properties of the discontinuities and the fine structure of the discontinuity transitions will be investigated. The variation of physical conditions of the sun and in the solar wind as a function of latitude will be particularly effective in the unraveling of the physical processes determining the origin and evolution of discontinuities. The data requested are from the time interval September 94 through March 1996 and are all in the validated data category. We shall first identify appropriate events and then determine their nature, i.e. tangential or rotational discontinuities or other types. This will be followed by a classification according to finestructure of the discontinuity transition. All this will be done for various radial distance intervals and heliographic latitude ranges. Also we shall make sure that the data investigated will be from comparable parts of the past solar cycles. The interpretation of the results will lead to new insights in plasma physics when the discontinuities are used as individual samples from the plasma laboratory.

Address


Universität zu Köln
Institut für Geophysik und Meteorologie
Zülpicher Str. 49a
4. Stock, Zimmer 427
50674 Köln

Email: neubauer@pluto.geo.uni-koeln.de

Tel: +49 221 470 2552

Fax: +49 221 470 5198

WWW: http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/geo/index.html


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Last changed 29th May 1997 by Tim Horbury.