Energetic Charged Particles as Probes of the Geometry and Topology of theInterplanetary Magnetic Field: The Detection of Coronal Mass Ejections

摘要

The large-scale structure of the interplanetary magnetic field has been inferredalmost exclusively from single point measurements obtained by spacecraft. It has recently been appreciated that energetic charged particles can yield new information about the interplanetary fields since they originate at the sun and are constrained to follow the field lines out to the points of observation. The author reviews the results of particle probes, particularly bidirectional flows (BDFs), to detect coronal mass ejections (CMEs). While a good association, possibly one-to-one, has been assumed between BDFs and CMEs, there is now evidence to suggest that some CMEs do not produce BDFs and that many BDFs are not due to CMEs.