Time-dependent tomography of heliospheric features using the three-dimensional reconstruction techniques developed for the solar mass ejection imager (SMEI)

Precise photometric images of the heliosphere are expected from the Air Force/NASA Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) now scheduled for launch in February 2003, and the all-sky cameras proposed for other NASA missions. To optimize the information available from these instruments, we are developing tomographic techniques for analyzing remote sensing observations of heliospheric density as observed in Thomson scattering (e.g. using the Helios photometer data) for eventual use with SMEI. We have refined the tomography program to enable us to analyze time-dependent phenomena, such as the evolution of corotating heliospheric structures and more discrete events such as coronal mass ejections. Both types of phenomena are discerned in our data, and are reconstructed in three dimensions. We use our tomography technique to study the interaction of these phenomena as they move outward from the Sun for several events that have been studied by multiple spacecraft in situ observations and other techniques.

[1]  H. Link,et al.  The Helios zodiacal light experiment (E9). , 1975 .

[2]  B. V. Jackson,et al.  Helios spacecraft photometer observation of elongated corotating structures in the interplanetary medium , 1991 .

[3]  B. Jackson,et al.  Heliospheric tomography using interplanetary scintillation observations. 1. Combined Nagoya and Cambridge data , 1998 .

[4]  T. Ohmi,et al.  Time‐dependent tomography of hemispheric features using interplanetary scintillation (IPS) remote‐sensing observations , 2003 .

[5]  Bernard V. Jackson,et al.  Helios images of solar mass ejections , 1985 .

[6]  Bernard V. Jackson,et al.  Three Dimensional Tomography of Heliospheric Features Using Global Thomson Scattering Data , 2000 .

[7]  George M. Simnett,et al.  Solar Mass Ejection Imager , 2002 .

[8]  D. J. Michels,et al.  Coronal transients near sunspot maximum , 1981 .

[9]  J. D. Sullivan,et al.  Interplanetary particles and fields, November 22 to December 6, 1977: Helios, Voyager, and Imp observations between 0.6 and 1.6 AU , 1979 .

[10]  Bernard V. Jackson,et al.  The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (Smei) , 2003 .

[11]  Bernard V. Jackson,et al.  Considerations of a Solar Mass Ejection Imager in a low-earth orbit , 1992 .

[12]  Bernard V. Jackson,et al.  Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[13]  B. Inhester,et al.  The three-dimensional structure of the solar corona , 1995 .

[14]  Donald E. Billings,et al.  A Guide to the Solar Corona , 2013 .

[15]  Bogdan Rompolt,et al.  Solar and interplanetary observations of the mass ejection on 7 May, 1979 , 1988 .