Three-Dimensional Solar Wind Modeling Using Remote-Sensing Data

Abstract

We have developed a computer-assisted tomography (CAT) technique that iteratively modifies a kinematic solar wind model to least-squares fit heliospheric remote sensing observations (interplanetary scintillation and Thomson-scattering observations). These remote sensing data cover a large range of solar elongations, and access high-latitude regions over the solar poles. The technique can be applied to a time-independent solar wind model, assuming strict co-rotation, or, when sufficient remote sensing observations are available, to a time-dependent model. For the time-dependent case the technique depends primarily on outward motion of structures in the solar wind to provide the perspective views required for a tomographic reconstruction. We show results of corotating tomographic reconstructions primarily using IPS velocity observations from the Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory (STELab, Nagoya, Japan), and include comparisons with in situ velocity data out of the ecliptic (Ulysses) and in the ecliptic (ACE).