Solar-wind structure determined by corotating coronal inhomogeneities: 2. Arbitrary perturbations

The problem of the solar-wind structure resulting from long-lived inhomogeneities in the solar corona has been extended within the framework of a linearized hydrodynamic approach to allow for arbitrary perturbations in the plasma parameters, namely, velocity, density, and temperature. By using a Parker model for the zero-order flow speed, solutions are given for perturbations imposed at the zero-order critical point. Using the restriction that the solutions must be regular at the critical point, it is possible to express all situations as a linear sum of the solutions for pure velocity, density, and temperature perturbations at the critical point. The results of the integrations for the three inner-boundary conditions can be used as the elements of matrices that map arbitrary perturbations at one heliocentric distance to any other distance. One interesting feature of the solutions is that the amplitudes at earth for the pure initial temperature situation are larger than for the other two situations. Thus, if the perturbation amplitudes at the critical point are all of the same order of magnitude, the temperature perturbation will dominate the structure at earth. In fact, the phases between the perturbations at earth given by the pure initial temperature situation are similar to the observations.