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Feldman et al. 1978
Feldman, W.C., Asbridge, J.R., Bame, S.J., Gosling, J.T. and Lemons, D.S. (1978). Characteristic electron variations across simple high-speed solar wind streams. Journal of Geophysical Research 83: doi: 10.1029/JA080i011p05285. issn: 0148-0227.

This paper documents electron variations across simple high-speed streams. Two streams were chosen for full documentation, and hourly averaged parameter plots are presented. Comprehensive scans of the shapes of electron distributions measured at the very highest bulk speeds confirm the results of Rosenbauer and co-workers and show that they are composed of two parts: a low-energy nearly isotropic component and a high-energy strongly beamed component. At 174eV the high-energy beam typically has a full width at half maximum of ~18¿; this width decreases with increasing energy. The fact that high-energy electrons are strongly beamed is consistent with a suggestion made previously that for them, pitch-angle-scattering collisions are rare beyond some base radius R0. Their angular widths as a function of energy can be reproduced if it is assumed that their velocity distribution is isotropic below R0 and evolves with heliocentric distance according to Liouville's theorem. The data are consistent with a base radius between about 10 and 30 Rs. The near isotropy and low temperature of low-energy electrons suggest that binary Coulomb interactions and waves couple them efficiently to one another as well as to the solar wind ions. Beyond the speed maxima but within the constant high-speed portions of simple streams, systematic trends in most electron parameters are small. This fact reinforces our previous conclusion that high-speed flows represent a special structure-free state of the solar wind at 1 AU.

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Journal of Geophysical Research
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American Geophysical Union
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