Evolution of Relative Drifts in the Expanding Solar Wind: Helios Observations

Abstract

Ion velocity distribution functions (VDFs) measured in-situ in the solar wind show often large deviations from a simple Maxwellian distribution. Even a main part of the proton VDF (proton core) situated around the global maximum maintains a bi-Maxwellian character. Moreover, skewness, related to a non-thermal tail or proton beam, is often observed. In addition to these two proton populations, various heavy ion species are present and their VDFs also exhibit the mentioned non-thermal features. In the proton core frame, minor components including ion beams drift along the interplanetary magnetic field and their average differential velocities decrease with an increasing distance from the Sun. We present reprocessing of the VDFs measured by the Helios spacecraft with a motivation to discuss evolutions of relative drifts between three dominant components – the proton core, proton beam, and $\upalpha $ -particle core at different distances from the Sun. Our processing is based on assumptions that partial VDFs of all these components can be approximated by a bi-Maxwellian distribution. We compare results of this novel procedure with those from previous computation results and introduce basic characteristics of the VDF components in both slow and fast solar wind streams. Finally, we investigate the correlated variations of the velocity ratios on the ion components and magnetic field orientations occurring independently on the radial distance from the Sun.