New insights on the behaviour of solar wind protons and alphas in the stream interaction region in solar cycle 23 and 24

Abstract

Although the enhancements in the alpha-proton ratio in the solar wind (expressed as AHe = Na/Np*100) in the interplanetary coronal mass ejections have been studied in the past, AHe enhancements at the stream interface region received very little attention so far. In this letter, by extensively analysing the stream interaction region (SIR) events observed in solar cycle 23 and 24, we show that the stream interface of alphas starts separating out from that of protons from the minimum of solar cycle 23. The population of alpha particles are enhanced compared to protons at higher angles between bulk velocity and local magnetic field (henceforth, bulk velocity angle) in the fast wind region of SIRs if the background solar wind is taken as reference. The analysis of differential velocities between alphas and protons also reveals that the faster alpha particles accumulate near the fast wind side of the stream interface region leading to enhancement of AHe. The investigation brings out, for the first time, the salient changes in AHe in SIRs for the two solar cycles and highlight the importances of bulk velocity angle and differential velocity in the fast wind region for the changes in AHe in SIRs.