Slow solar wind: Sources and components of the stream structure at the solar maximum

We study the sources and components of the solar-wind spatial stream structure at the maximum of the solar cycle 23. In our analysis, we use several independent sets of experimental data: radio-astronomical observations of scattered radiation from compact sources with the determination of the distance from the Sun to the inner boundary of the transonic-flow transition region (R-in); calculated data on the magnetic-field intensity and structure in the solar corona, in the solar-wind Source region, obtained from optical measurements of the photospheric magnetic-field intensity at the Stanford Solar Observatory (USA); and observations of the white-light corona with the LASCO coronograph onboard the SOHO spacecraft. We show that at the solar maximum, low-speed streams with a transition region located far from the Sun dominate in the solar-wind Structure. A correlation analysis of the location of the inner boundary R-in and the source-surface magnetic-field intensity \B-R\ on a sphere R = 2.5R(S) (R-S is the solar radius) has revealed the previously unknown lowest-speed streams, which do not fit into the regular relationship between the parameters R-in and \B-R\. In the white-light corona, the sources of these streams are located near the dark strip, a coronal region with a greatly reduced density; the nonstandard parameters of the streams probably result from the interaction of several discrete Sources of different types. (C) 2003 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".