Visibility of Type III burst source location as inferred from stereoscopic space observations

Abstract

Abstract. We study solar Type III radio bursts simultaneously observed by RPWS/Cassini, URAP/Ulysses and WAVES/Wind experiments. The observations allows us to cover a large frequency bandwidth from 16 MHz down to a few kHz. We consider the onset time of each burst, and estimate the corresponding intensity level. Also we measure the Langmuir frequency as observed on the dynamic spectra recorded by the Ulysses spacecraft. The distances of Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft, with regard to the Sun, were in the order of 1 AU, 2.4 AU and 4.5 AU, respectively. The spacecraft trajectories were localized in the ecliptic plane in the case of Wind and Cassini, and for Ulysses in the southern hemisphere (i.e. heliocentric latitude higher than −50°). Despite the different locations, the spectral patterns of the selected solar bursts are found to be similar between 10 MHz and 2 MHz but unalike at lower frequency. We discuss the variation of the intensity level as recorded by the three spacecraft. We show that the reception system of each experiment affected the way the Type III burst intensity is measured. Also we attempt to estimate the electron beam along the interplanetary magnetic field where the trajectory is an Archimedean spiral. This leads us to infer on the visibility of the source location with regard to the spacecraft position.