Swan Observations of the Solar Wind Latitude Distribution and its Evolution Since Launch |
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Authors: | Jean-Loup Bertaux Erkki Kyrölä Eric Quemerais Rosine Lallement Walter Schmidt Tuula Summanen Jorge Costa Teemu Mäkinen |
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Institution: | (1) Service d'Aéronomie du CNRS, BP. 3, 91371 Verrières-le-Buisson, France;(2) Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, FI 00101 Helsinki, Finland |
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Abstract: | SWAN is the first space instrument dedicated to the monitoring of the latitude distribution of the solar wind by the Lyman
alpha method. The distribution of interstellar H atoms in the solar system is determined by their destruction during ionization
charge-exchange with solar wind protons. Maps of sky Ly-α emission have been recorded regularly since launch. The upwind maximum
emission region deviates strongly from the pattern that would be expected from a solar wind that is constant with latitude.
It is divided in two lobes by a depression aligned with the solar equatorial plane, called the Lyman-alpha groove, due to
enhanced ionization along the neutral sheet where the slow and dense solar wind is concentrated. The groove (or the anisotropy)
is more pronounced in 1997 than in 1996, but it then decreases between 1997 and 1998.
This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. |
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