Properties of Solar Wind Dynamic Pressure Pulses at 1 AU during the Deep Minimum between Solar Cycles 23 and 24

Abstract

Observations during the deep solar minimum between Solar Cycles 23 and 24 offer an opportunity for characterizing the nature of solar wind dynamic pressure pulses (DPPs) under extreme solar activity. In this study, we identify 226 DPPs from July 2008 to June 2009 using an automatic detection algorithm based on high-resolution plasma data from the Wind spacecraft to investigate the features of DPPs during the deep solar minimum. For comparison, the similarities and differences of the statistical characteristics of the DPPs during the deep solar minimum and during the previous solar minimum are also examined. It is found that the number and the occurrence rate of DPPs during the deep solar minimum are only about one-third of those during the previous minimum, which may be attributed to lower solar wind dynamic pressure and weaker dynamic pressure fluctuations. From a statistical perspective, however, no obvious difference is apparent between the other basic DPP properties in the two solar minima, such as the absolute and relative amplitude of the dynamic pressure changes and the durations of the transition regions of DPPs. Other basic properties of the DPPs during the deep solar minimum are as follows: 1) the distribution of the absolute value of the dynamic pressure amplitude change peaks at 1.0 – 1.5 nPa, 2) the most probable relative pressure changes are 0.2 – 0.8, 3) DPP durations are broad-peaked between 150 s and 210 s with a mean of about 171 s, 4) 76.7 % of the DPPs can be considered as pressure balance structures, 5) dynamic pressure changes across DPPs are dominated by density changes, 6) specially, during the deep solar minimum, a considerable portion of DPPs, 86.7 %, are associated with large-scale solar wind transients such as interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and stream interaction regions (SIRs).