Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2009
Abstract
Magnetic clouds observed during the 1995-2003 years are fitted using force-free cylindrical flux rope models. The cloud parameters yielded by a static model are compared with those obtained from a modified model that includes selfconsistently magnetic cloud (MC) expansion.
Improvements of MC fits using the new expansion model are presented as a function of the expansion speed. This speed was calculated from the velocity gradient within MC and the distance of the spacecraft trajectory from the MC axis.
The analysis of distances between MC-driven shocks and MCs themselves suggests that a non-cylindrical cross-section of the MC is a source of fitting errors.