Large-Scale Structure of Solar Wind beyond the Earth’s Orbit: Reconstruction Using the Data of Two-Site Measurements of Interplanetary Scintillations in the Decameter Radio Range

Abstract

Solar wind is a set of flows with different parameters (the speed, the exponent of the spectrum of heterogeneities, the width, etc.). A bimodal character of the speed distribution of the solar wind was determined in spaceborne experiments. The measurements onboard the Ulysses spacecraft confirmed that the bimodal structure of solar wind continues to persist at relatively large distances from the Sun (to several astronomical units). However, there is one more possibility to determine the stream structure of solar wind. This is the method of interplanetary scintillations. The purpose of the paper is to reconstruct the stream structure of solar wind beyond the Earth’s orbit using the data on interplanetary scintillations obtained at two observational sites. The experiments were carried out at decameter wavelengths, since they are rather strongly scattered by the rarefied interplanetary plasma beyond the Earth’s orbit. The experimental data on interplanetary scintillations analyzed in this work were obtained in synchronous observations with the UTR-2 and URAN-2 radio telescopes. The parameters of solar wind and its stream structure were determined by comparison of the characteristics of interplanetary scintillations measured in the experiment (the dependences of the harmonic velocity of the cross-spectrum of scintillations and the power spectra) to those calculated with the models. To separate the interplanetary and ionospheric scintillations, the spectral, spatial, and frequency criteria were used. The results of this analysis show that solar wind beyond the Earth’s orbit consists of several streams that replace each other on the line of sight toward the radio source. These investigations prove the reliability and efficiency of the interplanetary scintillation method for reconstructing the stream structure of solar wind.