Experimental constraints on pulsed and steady state models of the solar wind near the Sun

Abstract

Ulysses observations of the high‐latitude solar wind were combined with Spartan 201 observations of the corona to investigate the nature and extent of uncertainties in our knowledge of solar wind structure near the Sun. In addition to uncertainties stemming from the propagation of errors in density profiles inferred from coronagraph observations [see, e.g., Lallement et al., 1986], an assessment of the consequences of choosing different analysis assumptions reveals very large, fundamental uncertainties in our knowledge of even the basics of coronal structure near the Sun. In the spirit of demonstrating the nature and extent of these uncertainties we develop just one of a generic class of explicitly time‐dependent and filamentary models of the corona that is consistent with the Ulysses and Spartan 201 data. This model provides a natural explanation for the radial profiles of both the axial ratios and apparent radial speeds of density irregularities measured at radial distances less than 10 Rs using the interplanetary scintillation technique.