Authors: P Riley R Lionello
Publish Date: 2011/05/11
Volume: 270, Issue: 2, Pages: 575-592
Abstract
A variety of techniques exist for mapping solar wind plasma and magnetic field measurements from one location to another in the heliosphere Such methods are either applied to extrapolate solar data or coronal model results from near the Sun to 1 AU or elsewhere or to map insitu observations back to the Sun In this study we estimate the sensitivity of four models for evolving solar wind streams from the Sun to 1 AU In order of increasing complexity these are i ballistic extrapolation ii ad hoc kinematic mapping iii 1D upwinding propagation and iv global heliospheric MHD modeling We also consider the effects of the interplanetary magnetic field on the evolution of the stream structure The upwinding technique is a new simplified method that bridges the extremes of ballistic extrapolation and global heliospheric MHD modeling It can match the dynamical evolution captured by global models but is almost as simple to implement and as fast to run as the ballistic approximation
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