The dynamics and collapse of antisunward propagating density discontinuities ("blobs") in the streamer belt

Victor Eselevich

Abstract

It is shown that antisunward propagating mass inhomoegenities with a typical lifetime of about several hours are randomly produced inside ray structures of the streamer belt. Plots of their velocity increase with increasing R are similar to those obtained in [Sheeley et al., Astrophys. J., 485, 472, 1997] for "blobs" carried away by the bulk solar wind. When the "blob's" velocity with respect to the main solar wind is larger than the local sound velocity, a "blob" collapse phenomenon is observed, implying that as the "blob" moves away from the Sun, its leading edge is decelerated and its trailing edge is accelerated. This results in an abrupt decrease in its longitudinal size and in an increase of plasma density inside it. The shock formation at the "blob's" leading edge is regarded as one plausible reason for the deceleration.

    authors:  V.G. Eselevich and M. V. Eselevich

    organization  Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Irkutsk, Russia, (E-mail:esel@iszf.irk.ru)