ACE and WIND Observations of Torsional Alfven Waves in the Solar Wind

We examined variations of the solar wind magnetic fields which are characterized by smooth field rotations with time scales of 2-7 hours, and identified the existence of two classes of structures. One is a small-scale magnetic flux rope, and the other shows clear characteristics of Alfven waves. In this study, we attempted to clarify fundamental characteristics of the structure of the second class. We have found that the observed features are basically described by the cylindrical structure consisting of the uniform background field and the circular torsional wave field propagating along the background field. We performed the least-squares fitting analysis for the observed rotational variations with a simple model of the torsional Alfven wave as described above. The fitted results show satisfactory agreement with observations and thus allow us to determine the structure of the region occupied by the torsional Alfven wave. Furthermore, the examination of ACE and WIND observations reveals several cases in which two spacecrafts encountered the same structure at different position and different times. Comparison of such cases provides further evidence that the observed rotational field variations are due to the torsional Alfven waves, and not due to elliptically-polarized Alfven waves.