Lagrangian Stochastic Model for the Motions of Magnetic Footpoints on the Solar Wind Source Surface and the Path Lengths of Boundary-driven Interplanetary Magnetic Field Lines

Abstract

Abstract In this work, we extend Leighton’s diffusion model describing the turbulent mixing of magnetic footpoints on the solar wind source surface. The present Lagrangian stochastic model is based on the spherical Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process with drift that is controlled by the rotation frequency Ω of the Sun, the Lagrangian integral timescale τ L, and the root-mean-square footpoint velocity V rms. The Lagrangian velocity and the positions of magnetic footpoints on the solar wind source surface are obtained from the solutions of a set of stochastic differential equations, which are solved numerically. The spherical diffusion model of Leighton is recovered in the singular Markov limit when the Lagrangian integral timescale tends to zero while keeping the footpoint diffusivity finite. In contrast to the magnetic field lines driven by standard Brownian processes on the solar wind source surface, the interplanetary magnetic field lines are smooth differentiable functions with finite path lengths in our model. The path lengths of the boundary-driven interplanetary magnetic field lines and their probability distributions at 1 au are computed numerically, and their dependency with respect to the controlling parameters is investigated. The path-length distributions are shown to develop a significant skewness as the width of the distributions increases.