DIAMAGNETIC STRUCTURES AS A BASIS OF QUASI-STATIONARY SLOW SOLAR WIND

The results presented in this review reflect the fundamentals of the modern understanding of the slow solar wind (SW) structure along all the way from the Sun to Earth's orbit. The source of the slow quasistationary SW on the Sun is known to be coronal streamer belt and chains. The streamer belt encircles the Sun as a wave-like surface (skirt), representing a sequence of pairs of rays with increased brightness (plasma density) or two closely spaced lines of rays. The neutral line of the radial component of the global solar magnetic field goes along the belt between the rays of each of these pairs. The streamer belt extension in the heliosphere is the heliospheric plasma sheet (HPS). The detailed analysis of Wind and IMP-8 satellite data has shown that HPS parts in Earth's orbit are recorded as a sequence of diamagnetic tubes with increased density plasma and low interplanetary magnetic field. They represent an extension of rays with increased brightness of the streamer belt near the Sun. Their angular size remains the same over the entire way from the Sun to Earth's orbit. Each HPS diamagnetic tube has a fine internal structure on several scales, or fractality. In other words, the diamagnetic tube is a set of embedded diamagnetic tubes whose angular size can vary by almost two orders of magnitude. These sequences of diamagnetic tubes that form the basis of the slow SW in Earth's orbit has a more general name - diamagnetic structures (DS). In the final part of this article, a comparative analysis of several events is made using the results of this review. It allowed us to find out the morphology and origin of the new term "SW diamagnetic plasmoids" (local enhancements of plasma density), which appeared in several articles published in 2012-2018. The analysis carried out at the end of this article has shown for the first time that SW diamagnetic plasmoids are a small-scale component of the fractal diamagnetic structures of slow SW considered in this review.