Jones, R. A.; Breen, A. R.; Fallows, R. A.; Canals, A.; Bisi, M. M.; Lawrence, G. (2007). Interaction between coronal mass ejections and the solar wind, Journal of Geophysical Research, 112, Issue A8 RAE2008Observations suggest that the interplanetary extensions of coronal mass ejections (iCMEs) may be accelerated or decelerated in their passage through the solar wind. Interplanetary scintillation measurements (IPS) can detect the passage of iCMEs beyond the field of view of the Large-Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph coronagraphs and can provide information on their velocities. The European Incoherent Scatter Radar and the Multi Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network systems, with a field of view covering 10-120 solar radii, can provide information on iCMEs in the inner regions of the solar wind. IPS observations can also provide solar wind velocity measurements ahead of the iCME, and using this information, we consider the velocity profile of a number of clearly defined iCMEs and the relationship between iCME velocities and that of the background solar wind. The results provide additional confirmation that iCMEs converge toward the velocity of the solar wind ahead of the event and that most of the resulting acceleration or deceleration occurs in the innermost regions of the solar wind.Peer reviewe

Abstract.Interplanetary scintillation measurements can yield estimates of a large number of solar wind parameters, including bulk flow speed, variation in bulk velocity along the observing path through the solar wind and random variation in transverse velocity. This last parameter is of particular interest, as it can indicate the flux of low-frequency Alfvén waves, and the dissipation of these waves has been proposed as an acceleration mechanism for the fast solar wind. Analysis of IPS data is, however, a significantly unresolved problem and a variety of a priori assumptions must be made in interpreting the data. Furthermore, the results may be affected by the physical structure of the radio source and by variations in the solar wind along the scintillation ray path. We have used observations of simple point-like radio sources made with EISCAT between 1994 and 1998 to obtain estimates of random transverse velocity in the fast solar wind. The results obtained with various a priori assumptions made in the analysis are compared, and we hope thereby to be able to provide some indication of the reliability of our estimates of random transverse velocity and the variation of this parameter with distance from the Sun.

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