Near-orthogonal Orientation of Small-scale Magnetic Flux Ropes Relative to the Background Interplanetary Magnetic Field

Small-scale magnetic flux ropes (SMFRs) have been identified at a large range of heliospheric distances from the Sun. Their features are somewhat similar to those of larger-scale flux rope structures such as magnetic clouds (MCs), while their occurrence rate is far higher. In this work, we examined the orientations of a large number of SMFRs that were identified at 1 au by fitting to the force-free model. We find that, while most of the SMFRs lie mostly close to the ecliptic plane, as previously known, their azimuthal orientations relative to the Sun-Earth line are found largely at two specific angles (slightly less than 45 degrees and 225 degrees). This latter feature in turn leads to a strong statistical trend in which the axis of SMFRs lies at a large tilt angle relative to (most often nearly orthogonal to) the corresponding background interplanetary magnetic field directions in the ecliptic plane. This feature is different from previous reports on SMFRs-and in stark contrast to the cases of MCs. This is an important observational constraint that should be considered for understanding SMFR generation and propagation.