HeliosphericTomographyIPS

The 3-D reconstruction technique incorporates a kinematic solar wind model that conserves mass and mass flux and tomographically fits this to ground-based interplanetary scintillation (IPS) data provided by the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE), Japan (formerly the Solar Terrestrial Environment Laboratory). The IPS time-dependent 3-D reconstruction analysis has been available at the CCMC since 2001, but has been updated recently to provide time-dependent volumes of density and velocity at slightly higher resolution than before. The IPS analysis allows the 3-D reconstruction of CMEs and other heliospheric structures such as corotating interaction regions (CIRs).

Velocity observations from ISEE are not available during the winter months (generally December to March) because of snow in the mountains of Japan.

In 2010 a more modern radio array was commissioned (SWIFT) that allowed year-round observations of scintillation level (used by the tomography as a density proxy) from an order of magnitude more radio sources than available prior. Previous to this no IPS data were available in the winter months in Japan.

From 2006 onward magnetic fields from GONG data are extrapolated outward from the IPS inner boundary at 15 Rs using the CSSS model and the velocity analysis from the UCSD tomography.

The tomography currently operates from 15 Rs to 3.0 AU

Remote sensing data of the solar wind (currently IPS observations from the ISEE in Nagoya, Japan).

Solar wind density and velocity throughout the inner heliosphere.