Finest Filamentary Structures of the Corona in the Slow and Fast Solar Wind

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Abstract
Recent progress in our understanding of electron density fluctuations observed by radio occultation measurements has demonstrated that a break in the vicinity of 1 Hz in the temporal frequency spectrum of the density fluctuations provides a measure of the size of the finest filamentary structures in the solar corona. Breaks in frequency have been inferred from the density spectra deduced by Coles et al. from 1979-1980 Voyager phase scintillation and spectral broadening measurements. These results show that the finest filamentary structures are found in the extensions or stalks of coronal streamers—the likely sources of the slow solar wind—and are over a factor of 3 smaller than those in the fast wind emanating from coronal holes. The inferred sizes of the finest filamentary structures are approximately 6 km in the slow wind at 8 R☉ and 22 km in the fast wind at 9.1 R☉.

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