Global distribution of coronal mass outputs and its relation to solar magnetic field structures

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The basic characteristics of the coronal mass output near the Sun are analyzed with the statistic and numerical methods by using observational data from K corona brightness, interplanetary scintillation, and photospheric magnetic field during the descending phases (1983) and the minimum (1984) of solar activity. The methods used here are based on the global distribution of the solar magnetic field on the source surface (at 2.5 solar radii (RS)). Our main results are the following: (1) There are certain regular persistent patterns in the global distributions of coronal mass outputs flux Fm (density ρ × speed V), which shows that the highest Fm in 1983 and 1984 display more regularly double peaks and single‐peak wave‐like patterns on the source surface (2.5 RS), respectively. The highest and the lowest Fm are associated with the coronal current sheet and the polar corona regions, respectively, and the other regions are associated with a moderate Fm. (2) The speed dependence of Fm is different for various magnetic structures. The dependence is nearly constant in the polar coronal region and monotonically rises in the current sheet regions both for the descending (1983) and the ascending (1976) phases. (3) The different frequency number distributions of Fm also correspond to different magnetic field structures, with average values m,p = 8.3 × 1011 particles/cm2(s) for the polar coronal region and m,c = 17.7 × 1011 particles/cm2(s) for the coronal current sheet. (4) As a theoretical test, a preliminary numerical study of the global distribution near 2.5 RS for the Carrington rotation 1742 in 1983 has been made by solving a self‐consistent MHD system based on the observations of K coronal brightness and the photospheric magnetic fields. The numerical results indicate that the global distributions of the coronal mass outputs on the source surface could be used to understand/predict the change of the interplanetary conditions.