Matching Temporal Signatures of Solar Features to Their Corresponding Solar-Wind Outflows

Abstract

The role of small-scale coronal eruptive phenomena in the generation and heating of the solar wind remains an open question. Here, we investigate the role played by coronal jets in forming the solar wind by testing whether temporal variations associated with jetting in EUV intensity can be identified in the outflowing solar-wind plasma. This type of comparison is challenging due to inherent differences between remote-sensing observations of the source and in-situ observations of the outflowing plasma, as well as travel time and evolution of the solar wind throughout the heliosphere. To overcome these, we propose a novel algorithm combining signal filtering, two-step solar-wind ballistic back-mapping, window shifting, and Empirical Mode Decomposition. We first validate the method using synthetic data, before applying it to measurements from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and Wind spacecraft. The algorithm enables the direct comparison of remote-sensing observations of eruptive phenomena in the corona to in-situ measurements of solar-wind parameters, among other potential uses. After application to these datasets, we find several time windows where signatures of dynamics found in the corona are embedded in the solar-wind stream, at a time significantly earlier than expected from simple ballistic back-mapping, with the best-performing in-situ parameter being the solar-wind mass flux.

Searching for a Solar Source of Magnetic-Field Switchbacks in Parker Solar Probe’s First Encounter

“…The implementation of EMD shown here is tested and discussed in de Pablos et al. ( 2021 ), where it is applied to compare coronal timescales to solar-wind observations captured by near-Earth spacecraft. We started with selection of a short and long dataset, depending on their time duration.…”

Linking the Sun to the Heliosphere Using Composition Data and Modelling

“…Both in-situ and remote sensing observations provide critical vantage points to view structures and phenomena on the Sun, in the corona, as well as observe their propagation through the heliosphere. Due to the limited number of satellite and ground based observations, incomplete spatial mapping from the Sun out into the heliosphere requires new methods for connecting observations (see for instance Stansby et al, 2020;de Pablos et al, 2021). Connecting measurements from the Sun into the heliosphere is a major challenge in solar physics and heliophysics, not only in that different quantities are observed with different sensors, at different time cadences, but also the connections between these measurements often do not have a well defined or unique solution (see for instance Poletto et al, 1996).…”