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Heliolatitudinal and time variations of the solar wind mass flux: Inferences from the backscattered solar Lyman‐alpha intensity maps
Author(s) -
Katushkina O. A.,
Izmodenov V. V.,
Quemerais E.,
Sokół J. M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1002/jgra.50303
Subject(s) - heliosphere , ecliptic , solar wind , physics , coronal mass ejection , interplanetary spaceflight , solar cycle , astrophysics , flux (metallurgy) , intensity (physics) , solar minimum , interplanetary medium , solar cycle 23 , astronomy , computational physics , plasma , optics , materials science , quantum mechanics , metallurgy
Recently Sokół et al. (2012) have presented a reconstruction of heliolatitudinal and time variations of the solar wind speed and density. Method of the reconstruction was based on the following: (i) measurements of the interplanetary scintillations, (ii) OMNI‐2 solar wind data in the ecliptic plane, and (iii) Ulysses solar wind data out of the ecliptic plane. In this paper we use hydrogen charge exchange rates derived from their results as input parameters to calculate the interstellar hydrogen distribution in the heliosphere in the frame of our 3‐D time‐dependent kinetic model. The hydrogen distribution is then used to calculate the backscattered solar Lyman‐alpha intensity maps. The theoretical Lyman‐alpha maps are compared with the SOHO/SWAN measurements during maximum and minimum of the solar cycle activity. We found that in the solar minimum there is a quite good agreement between the model results and the SWAN data, but in the solar maximum sky maps of the Lyman‐alpha, intensities are qualitatively different for the model results and observations. Physical reasons of the differences are discussed.