Unified theory of the interplanetary magnetic field

A simple model is used to present a unified picture of the polarity pattern of the interplanetary magnetic field observed during the solar cycle. Emphasis in this paper is on the field near solar maximum. The heliographic latitude dependence of the dominant polarity of the interplanetary magnetic field is explained in terms of weak poloidal (dipolar) field sources in the sun's photosphere. Unlike the Babcock theory, the author hypothesizes that the dipolar field exists at equatorial latitudes (0–20°), too, (as well as in polar regions) and that the major source of the interplanetary magnetic field observed near the ecliptic plane is the dipolar field from equatorial latitudes. The polarity of the interplanetary field data taken in 1968 and in the first half of 1969 near solar maximum may possibly be explained in terms of a depression of the dipolar field boundary in space. The effect on the solar wind of the greater activity in the northern hemisphere of the sun that existed in 1968 and in the first half of 1969 is believed responsible for this hypothesized depression, especially near solar maximum, of the plane separating the + and - dipolar polarity below the solar equatorial plane in space. Predictions are made concerning the interplanetary field to be observed near the ecliptic plane in each portion of the next solar cycle.     

Comparison of the mean photospheric magnetic field and the interplanetary magnetic field

The mean photospheric magnetic field of the sun seen as a star has been compared with the interplanetary magnetic field observed with spacecraft near the earth. Each change in polarity of the mean solar field is followed about 4 1/2 days later by a change in polarity of the interplanetary field (sector boundary). The scaling of the field magnitude from sun to near earth is within a factor of two of the theoretical value, indicating that large areas on the sun have the same predominant polarity as that of the interplanetary sector pattern. An independent determination of the zero level of the solar magnetograph has yielded a value of 0.1±0.05 G. An effect attributed to a delay of approximately one solar rotation between the appearance of a new photospheric magnetic feature and the resulting change in the interplanetary field is observed.     

Power spectra of the interplanetary magnetic field

Power spectra based on Pioneer 6 interplanetary magnetic field data in early 1966 exhibit a frequency dependence of f ^–2 in the range 2.8 × 10^–4 to 1.6 × 10^–2 cps for periods of both quiet and disturbed field conditions. Both the shape and power levels of these spectra are found to be due to the presence of directional discontinuities in the microstructure (< 0.01 AU) of the interplanetary magnetic field. Power spectra at lower frequencies, in the range of 2.3 × 10^–6 to 1.4 × 10^–4 cps, reflect the field macrostructure (> 0.1 AU) and exhibit a frequency dependence roughly between f ^–1 and f ^–3/2. The results are related to theories of galactic cosmic-ray modulation and are found to be consistent with recent observations of the modulation.     

Solar source of the interplanetary planar magnetic structures

Planar magnetic structure (PMS) is an interplanetary magnetic structure in which magnetic field vectors are all parallel to a plane but highly variable in both magnitude and direction in that plane. This magnetic structure corresponds to re-entrant loops of magnetic field lines in the photosphere that emanate into interplanetary space. To find information on the generation site, occurrence properties of PMSs are investigated by using the interplanetary magnetic field data obtained by Sakigake and ISEE-3 spacecraft. No significant correlation is found between PMS occurrence and the solar wind velocity gradient which would suggest interplanetary formation of PMSs. No significant correlation is found between the PMS events and flares or filaments, either. Instead, a half of the PMSs were projected to the vicinity of the sector boundary in the source surface magnetic field, although there are exceptions when PMS appeared in the center of a sector. The PMS planes were not parallel to the current sheet at the sector boundary. Sometimes PMSs were observed recurrently at the same heliospheric longitude in successive rotations of the Sun, suggesting persistence of the source of PMS on the Sun. The orientation of the PMS planes were not conserved in the recurrent PMSs.     

Directional discontinuities in the interplanetary magnetic field

It is shown that the interplanetary magnetic field has different characteristics on different scales, and it is noted that a given physical theory may not be applicable or relevant on all scales. Four scales are defined in terms of time intervals on which the data may be viewed. Many discontinuities in the magnetic-field direction are seen on the mesoscale ( 4 days, 1 AU). The characteristics of such directional discontinuities which were observed by Pioneer 6 during the period December 16, 1965-January 4, 1966 are presented, with special emphasis on their distribution in time. Previously, it was suggested that such discontinuities are simply boundaries of spaghetti-like filaments extending from the sun to the earth. Here it is shown that on the mesoscale unique filaments with sharp boundaries containing well-ordered magnetic fields are not always seen although discontinuities are always present at 1 AU. Thus, the interplanetary medium appears to be discontinuous rather than filamentary. The filamentary model implies that discontinuities originate at the sun and are convected with the solar wind. The discontinuous model allows the additional possibility that the discontinuities form in the interplanetary medium far from the sun.     

Large-scale three-dimensional structure of the interplanetary magnetic field

Analysis of observations of the white-light corona performed aboard OSO-7 is evidence for the existence of coronal ribbon-structures, which may be observed on the limb as coronal streamers. It is shown that prolongation of these structures into interplanetary space forms a curved surface; intersection of this surface is accompanied by a change of polarity of the interplanetary magnetic field, which existed in May–July 1973; and its connection with several phenomena in the solar atmosphere, has been found.     

The out of ecliptic distribution of interplanetary dust and its relation to other bodies in the solar system

We discuss the out-of-ecliptic component of the interplanetary dust cloud and its relation to the other small bodies in the solar system. The determination of the mass loss of comets, so far is quite uncertain and doesn't allow a finite study of the mass input to the dust cloud. However it is shown, that the dust particles in the inner solar system, i.e. within the earth orbit are most probable produced from a collisional evolution of larger, meteoroid, fragments of cometary origin. A further component of interstellar dust is especially important in the outer solar system and perhaps for the collisional evolution of the small bodies.     

Coronal magnetic structures associated with interplanetary clouds

Among all the signatures of solar ejecta in interplanetary space, magnetic clouds are particularly interesting. We have shown that they are associated with solar mass ejections that involve not only coronal heights, but also chromospheric heights and so, they are almost always associated with low-altitude solar activity such as H flares or filament eruptions. As a magnetic cloud is a very large structure, and not all the ejecta found in the interplanetary medium are clouds, it is interesting to investigate the characteristics of the large-scale coronal magnetic structures in the regions where the activity leading to a cloud takes place. In this paper we use Hoeksema's potential field model of the solar magnetosphere to obtain the magnetic structure of the site of the solar events associated with 35 interplanetary magnetic clouds. The position of the related solar activity was determined from the location of the near-surface solar explosive events (flares and filament eruptions) associated with each cloud, obtained in our previous study. We find that the solar activity associated with interplanetary magnetic clouds occurs in regions of low-altitude, magnetically closed structures lying between higher helmets, or between the highest helmets and coronal holes, where the magnetic field lines are longitudinally oriented.     

Auroral boundary variations and the interplanetary magnetic field

This paper describes a DMSP data set of 150 auroral images during magnetically quiet times which have been analyzed in corrected geomagnetic local time and latitudinal coordinates and fit to offset circles. The fit parameters R (circle radius) and (X, Y) (center location) have been compared to the hourly interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) prior to the time of the satellite scan of the aurora. The results for variation of R with B_z, agree with previous works and generally show about a 1° increase of R with increase of southward B_z by 1 nT. The location of the circle center also has a clear statistical shift in the Southern Hemisphere with IMF B_y such that the southern polar cap moves towards dusk (dawn) with B_y > (B_y < 0).     

Spectral polarization analysis of the interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations

A new computational method and algorithm, based on complex Fourier analysis, is used to derive the spectral density of plane and circularly polarized fluctuation components of the interplanetary magnetic field. Applications of the method have been made using HEOS 2 (1 AU), Pioneer 10 (5 AU), Pioneer 11 (20 AU), and ICE (Giocabini-Zinner's comet) data sets. The results show the existence of circularly polarized MHD waves in all cases.     

A solar cycle variation of the interplanetary magnetic field

Measurements of the north-south (B _z component of the interplanetary field as compiled by King (1975) when organized into yearly histograms of the values of ¦B _z ¦ reveal the following. (1) The histograms decrease exponentially from a maximum occurrence frequency at the value ¦B _z ¦ = 0. (2) The slope of the exponential on a semi-log plot varies systematically roughly in phase with the sunspot number in such a way that the probability of large values of ¦B _z ¦ is much greater in the years near sunspot maximum than in the years near sunspot minimum. (3) There is a sparsely populated high-value tail, for which the data are too meager to discern any solar cycle variation. The high-value tail is perhaps associated with travelling interplanetary disturbances. (4) The solar cycle variations of B _z and the ordinary indicators of solar activity are roughly correlated. (5) The solar cycle variation of B _z is distinctly different than that of the solar wind speed and that of the geomagnetic Ap disturbance index.Now at the Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif. 90245, U.S.A.     

Short-period interplanetary and polar magnetic field variations

It is shown that the dependence of the variations of vertical component of the polar cap magnetic field on the sector structure (actually, the azimuthal or Y component) of the interplanetary magnetic field as first discovered by Svalgaard (1968) and Mansurov (1969) extends to variations as brief as 1 hr or even less. The relation between sector structure dependent variations and substorm fields as indicated by the southward-directed component of the interplanetary magnetic field is investigated by comparing brief variations over selected intervals of time. The independence of the variations of the polar cap vertical and horizontal components suggests that there are at least two different current systems which produce brief variations in the polar cap. One of the current systems is related to the substonn field; the other is strongly seasonally dependent and is confined to the dayside sector of the Earth.     

Configuration of the auroral oval and the interplanetary magnetic field

The poleward boundary of the auroral oval, whose footline forms the periphery of the polar cap, is calculated, based on a model in which the geomagnetic field is interpermeated with the interplanetary field. It is shown that the calculated auroral oval size varies with the strength and direction of the interplanetary magnetic field, in agreement with recent observations of the location of large-scale nightside auroras.     

Influences of the interplanetary magnetic field on the auroral dynamics

This paper reports the study concerning the latitudinal dispalacement of the auroral oval as a function of the northward orientation of the B_z-component IMF and the relation between southward B_z and the auroral dynamics in the night sector.     

A solar cycle variation of the interplanetary magnetic field configuration

The representation of the sector boundaries, published by Svalgaard (1974, 1975) in a superposed 27-days Bartels format showed that they have a significant preference to occur in certain days of the solar rotation. Further study of these data, as well as of the polarized days in the vicinity of them, pointed out that during the epoch of extrema of the 11-year cycle there is a well-established 2-sector structure, on the average. On the contrary, a mean 4-sector structure is more prominent during the intermediate years.     

Spatial structure of transverse oscillations in the interplanetary magnetic field

The spatial structure of the transverse oscillations in the interplanetary magnetic field at 1 AU is studied by comparing the simultaneous observations by Explorer 33 and 35 satellites at the maximum separation of about 200R _E. The anisotropy characteristics of these oscillations suggest that the oscillations sampled are Alfvén waves. It is found that the size of the region of the wave coherence is related to the solar wind velocity; the size is 80R _E when the wind velocity is lower than 500 km s^–1 but becomes less than this when the wind velocity is higher. An inference is made that the solar atmospheric turbulence contributing to the faster solar wind is finer in scale than that associated with the slower wind.A postgraduate student at the Tokai University     

The interplanetary magnetic field environment at Mercury's orbit

Mercury is exposed to the most dynamic heliospheric space environment of any planet in the solar system. The magnetosphere is particularly sensitive to variations in the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), which control the intensity and geometry of the magnetospheric current systems that are the dominant source of uncertainty in determinations of the internal planetary magnetic field structure. The Magnetometer on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft has made extensive magnetic field observations in the inner heliosphere over the heliocentric distances of Mercury's orbit, between 0.31 and 0.47 AU. In this paper, Magnetometer data from MESSENGER, obtained at rates of 2 and 20 vector samples per second, are used together with previous observations in the inner heliosphere by Helios and at Earth by the Advanced Composition Explorer, to study the characteristics of IMF variability at Mercury's orbit. Although the average IMF geometry and magnitude depend on heliocentric distance as predicted by Parker, the variability is large, comparable to the total field magnitude. Using models for the external current systems we evaluate the impact of the variability on the field near the planet and find that the large IMF fluctuations should produce variations of the magnetospheric field of up to 30% of the dipole field at 200 km altitude, corresponding to the planned periapsis of MESSENGER's orbit at Mercury. The IMF fluctuations in the frequency range are consistent with turbulence, whereas evidence for dissipation was observed for . The transition between the turbulent and dissipative regimes is indicated by a break in the power spectrum, and the frequency of this break point is proportional to the IMF magnitude.     

Search for long term variations of the interplanetary magnetic field

A statistical study is made of the long term variations of the interplanetary magnetic field parameters collected in the years 1964 to 1973 by 12 spacecraft (IMP's, Pioneers and HEOS). Although temporal fluctuations are observed on field components and magnitudes no clear solar cycle variation is found. The same conclusion holds for the statistical distributions and variances of these parameters. A search for possible heliographic latitude effects on the field also leads to a negative conclusion.     

Study of interplanetary magnetic field with Ground State Alignment

We demonstrate a new way of studying interplanetary magnetic field—Ground State Alignment (GSA). Instead of sending thousands of space probes, GSA allows magnetic mapping with any ground telescope facilities equipped with spectropolarimeter. The polarization of spectral lines that are pumped by the anisotropic radiation from the Sun is influenced by the magnetic realignment, which happens for magnetic field (<1 G). As a result, the linear polarization becomes an excellent tracer of the embedded magnetic field. The method is illustrated by our synthetic observations of the Jupiter’s Io and comet Halley. Polarization at each point was constructed according to the local magnetic field detected by spacecrafts. Both spatial and temporal variations of turbulent magnetic field can be traced with this technique as well. The influence of magnetic field on the polarization of scattered light is discussed in detail. For remote regions like the IBEX ribbons discovered at the boundary of interstellar medium, GSA provides a unique diagnostics of magnetic field.