The wide skirt of the bashful ballerina: Hemispheric asymmetry of the heliospheric magnetic field in the inner and outer heliosphere

Abstract

We reanalyze the observations of the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) made by the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 heliospheric probes since 1972, and calculate the HMF sector occurrence ratios and tangential component strengths in the different regions of the heliosphere. Observations at the distant probes and at 1 AU show a very consistent picture of the HMF sector structure in the entire heliosphere, and even beyond the termination shock. HMF observations by the probes also support the southward shift of the heliospheric current sheet (the bashful ballerina phenomenon), which is observed earlier at 1-2 AU by the Ulysses probe and Earth-orbiting satellites, and verify the HCS shift over a wide range of radial distances until the distant heliosphere. Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 show that the development of northern polar coronal holes was very systematic and active during all the four solar minima since mid-1970s, while Voyager 2 observations show a less systematic and delayed development of southern coronal holes in 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. This delay in the evolution of southern coronal holes with respect to the rapid and systematic evolution of northern coronal holes leads to a larger extent of northern coronal holes and the southward shift of the HCS for a few years in the late declining phase of each solar cycle. Although evidence for the connection between the different evolution of polar coronal holes and the bashful ballerina phenomenon is obtained here only for three solar cycles, this may be a common pattern for solar coronal hole evolution since the southward shift of the HCS has occurred at least since solar cycle 16.