Studies of the Solar Wind Near the Sun

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This grant is to study the solar wind near the sun using a variety of radio propagation methods. The results of this "radio probing" will be compared with other ground-based coronal observations and with in-situ observations from space-craft. The basic objectives are to understand the mechanism(s) of coronal heating and of solar wind acceleration, and the relationship between large scale photospheric structures and large scale solar wind structures. Ultimately, such understanding is necessary to understand the coupling between the sun and the earth, enabling us to understand and even to predict conditions in the space environment around the earth. The radio-remote-sensing observations detect the results of phase modulation of radio waves passing through the solar wind in various ways. This phase modulation is linearly proportional to the electron density. Thus one observed the effects of electron density fluctuations. The simplest observation is to measure the solar wind velocity. However, the velocity is not the only information one can derive. One can also estimate the spatial spectrum of these density fluctuations and how they are couples to velocity fluctuations. One can see the effects of plasma waves in these observations and test their consistency with theoretical wave spectra. One could use these methods to provide ground-based support for the ULYSSES polar-orbiting space-craft. The ULYSSES mission will provide perhaps the only opportunity to directly observe the solar poles in this generation. #