Abstract
This is the first study of the isotopic composition of solar wind helium with the SWICS time-of flight mass spectrometer. Although the design of SWICS is not optimized to measure3He abundances precisely,4He/3He flux ratios can be deduced from the data. The long term ratio is 2290±200, which agrees with the results obtained with the ICI magnetic mass spectrometer on ISEE-3 and with the Apollo SWC foil experiments.
The ULYSSES spacecraft follows a trajectory which is ideal for the study of different solar wind types. During one year, from mid-1992 to mid-1993, it was in a range of heliographic latitudes where a recurrent fast stream from the southern polar coronal hole was observed every solar rotation. Solar wind bulk velocities ranged from 350 km/s to 950 km/s which would, in principle allow us to identify velocity-correlated compositional variations. Our investigation of solar wind helium, however, shows an isotopic ratio which does not depend on the solar wind speed.
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Bodmer, R., Bochsler, P., Geiss, J. et al. Solar wind helium isotopic composition from SWICS/ULYSSES. Space Sci Rev 72, 61–64 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00768754
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00768754