Magnetic dips in the solar wind

Abstract

Using magnetic data from the HELIOS 1 fluxgate magnetometer, with a 0.2 sec resolution, the structures of several interplanetary discontinuities involving magnetic dips and rotations of the magnetic field vector were investigated. A minimum variance analysis illustrates the behavior of the magnetic field through the transition in the plane of its maximum variation. Using this analysis, quite different structures have been individuated and, in particular, narrow transitions resembling almost one dimensional reconnected neutral sheets. For the thinner cases (scale lengths of the magnetic rotation of the order or smaller than 1,000 km), results show the observed structures could be the nonlinear effect of a resistive tearing mode instability having developed on an originally one dimensional neutral sheet at the solar corona.