High speed solar wind streams in relation to the sector boundaries of the heliospheric current sheet

Abstract

Abstract A great number of high-speed solar wind streams which cover the time period 1964–1982 has been analysed and some interesting features of their behaviour have been revealed. High-speed streams which occur during positive polarity days of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) prefer to appear mainly in the 1st and the 2nd Bartels day of the solar rotation while flare-related streams of the same category appear on the 24th and 26th day with a significant frequency. On the other hand, high-speed streams which occur during negative polarity days prefer to occur mainly between the 13th and 15th Bartels while flare-related streams of the same category appear on the 8th day. In addition high-speed streams, which occur in both positive and negative polarity days of the IMF, show a remarkable tendency to occur very close to (+,−) and (−,+) sector boundaries of the IMF, respectively.