HR: 17:00h
AN: SH32D-05    [PDF]
TI: MHD Simulation and Novel 3-D Visualization of Magnetic Holes in the Solar Wind
AU: * Roberts, D A
EM: aaron.roberts@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 692, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Goldstein, M L
EM: melvyn.l.goldstein@nasa.gov
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 692, Greenbelt, MD 20771 United States
AU: Deane, A E
EM: deane@morphy.umd.edu
AF: Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AB: We examine ``magnetic hole" regions in the solar wind where the magnetic field has decreased to very low levels over a time varying from minutes to hours. The structure of the regions is made clearer using multispacecraft observations seen with new 3-D visualization methods. We also present 3-D MHD simulations of regions in and near the heliospheric current sheet that suggest that at least some of the magnetic holes are associated with a previously unsuspected type of field configuration in which a near-null line forms in the center of spiraling magnetic fields. The fields do not undergo dynamical reconnection in the wind, at least at this level of simulation, but rather are convected out from as yet poorly understood field configurations near the Sun.
DE: 2134 Interplanetary magnetic fields
DE: 2164 Solar wind plasma
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting