This review is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Germany License. Imprint / Terms of Use Living Reviews in Solar Physics is a peer reviewed open access journal published by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max-Planck-Str. Keywords: Heliosphere, Magnetic field, Solar wind This review is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Germany License. Solar-cycle and cycle-to-cycle evolution of the HMF is discussed in terms of recent spacecraft observations and pre-spaceage proxies for the HMF in geomagnetic and galactic cosmic ray records. This review aims to summarise observations and theory of the small- and large-scale structure of the HMF. On the smaller scale, the HMF exhibits an array of waves, discontinuities, and turbulence, which give hints to the solar wind formation process. This pattern is distorted by the interaction of fast and slow solar wind streams, as well as the interplanetary manifestations of transient solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections. As the HMF remains rooted at the solar photosphere as the Sun rotates, the large-scale HMF traces out an Archimedean spiral. It is the means by which the Sun interacts with planetary magnetospheres and channels charged particles propagating through the heliosphere.
The heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) is the extension of the coronal magnetic field carried out into the solar system by the solar wind.
The Heliospheric Magnetic Field The Heliospheric Magnetic Field