Influence of Heliolatitudinal Anisotropy of Solar FUV/EUV Emissions on Lyman-alpha Helioglow: SOHO/SWAN Observations and WawHelioGlow Modeling

Abstract

Observations of the Sun's surface suggest a nonuniform radiated flux as related to the presence of bright active regions and darker coronal holes. The variations of the FUV/EUV source radiation can be expected to affect the Lyman-alpha backscatter glow measured by spaceborne instruments. In particular, inferring the heliolatitudinal structure of the solar wind from helioglow variations in the sky can be quite challenging if the heliolatitudinal structure of the solar FUV/EUV radiation is not properly included in the modeling of the heliospheric glow. We present results of analysis of the heliolatitudinal structure of the solar Lyman-alpha radiation as inferred from comparison of SOHO/SWAN satellite observations of the helioglow intensity with modeling results obtained from the recently-developed WawHelioGlow model. We find that in addition to time-dependent heliolatitudinal anisotropy of the solar wind, also time-dependent heliolatitudinal variations of the intensity of the solar Lyman-alpha and photoionizing emissions must be taken into account to reproduce the observed helioglow modulation in the sky. We present a particular latitudinal and temporal dependence of the solar Lyman-alpha flux obtained as a result of our analysis. We analyze also differences between polar-equatorial anisotropies close to the solar surface and seen by an observer located far from the Sun. We discuss the implications of these findings for the interpretation of heliospheric-glow observations.

Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters, 11 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Backscattered solar Lyman-alpha emission as a tool for the heliospheric boundary exploration
• The flow direction of interstellar neutral H from SOHO/SWAN
• Determining the ionization rates of interstellar neutral species using direct-sampling observations of their direct and indirect beams
• Absorption of the Lyman-$\alpha$ radiation in the heliosphere