Two-Station Interplanetary Scintillation Measurements of Solar Wind Speed near the Sun Using the X-band Radio Signal of the Nozomi Spacecraft

Interplanetary scintillation (IPS) measurements of the solar wind speed for the distance range between 13 and 37 RS were carried out during the solar conjunction of the Nozomi spacecraft in 2000 – 2001 using the X-band radio signal. Two large-aperture antennas were employed in this study, and the baseline between the two antennas was several times longer than the Fresnel scale for the X-band. We successfully detected a positive correlation of IPS from the cross-correlation analysis of received signal data during ingress, and estimated the solar wind speed from the time lag corresponding to the maximum correlation by assuming that the solar wind flows radially. The speed estimates range between 200 and 540 km s−1 with the majority below 400 km s−1. We examined the radial variation in the solar wind speed along the same streamline by comparing the Nozomi data with data obtained at larger distances. Here, we used solar wind speed data taken from 327 MHz IPS observations of the Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory (STEL), Nagoya University, and in situ measurements by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) for the comparison, and we considered the effect of the line-of-sight integration inherent to IPS observations for the comparison. As a result, Nozomi speed data were proven to belong to the slow component of the solar wind. Speed estimates within 30 RS were found to be systematically slower by 10 – 15 % than the terminal speeds, suggesting that the slow solar wind is accelerated between 13 and 30 RS.