Living Reviews in Solar Physics: "Solar wind stream interaction regions throughout the heliosphere"

Richardson, Ian G., "Coronal mass ejections and their sheath regions in interplanetary space", Living Rev Sol Phys (2018) 15: 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41116-017-0011-z​​​​​​​

Open Access | Review Article

First Online: 26 January 2018

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the interactions between the fast solar wind from coronal holes and the intervening slower solar wind, leading to the creation of stream interaction regions that corotate with the Sun and may persist for many solar rotations. Stream interaction regions have been observed near 1 AU, in the inner heliosphere (at ∼0.3–1 AU) by the Helios spacecraft, in the outer and distant heliosphere by the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, and out of the ecliptic by Ulysses, and these observations are reviewed. Stream interaction regions accelerate energetic particles, modulate the intensity of Galactic cosmic rays and generate enhanced geomagnetic activity. The remote detection of interaction regions using interplanetary scintillation and white-light imaging, and MHD modeling of interaction regions will also be discussed.

The authors:

Ian Richardson is an Assistant Research Scientist at GPHI/Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Areas of interest include: Solar energetic particles and cosmic rays; interplanetary coronal mass ejections, shocks, and corotating interaction regions; geomagnetic storms; energetic particles at comets and in the geomagnetic tail.