Intermittent release of transients in the slow solar wind: 1. Remote sensing observations

[1] The Heliospheric Imager (HI) instruments on board the STEREO spacecraft are used to analyze the solar wind during August and September 2007. We show how HI can be used to image the streamer belt and, in particular, the variability of the slow solar wind which originates inside and in the vicinity of the streamer belt. Intermittent mass flows are observed in HI difference images, streaming out along the extension of helmet streamers. These flows can appear very differently in images: plasma distributed on twisted flux ropes, V-shaped structures, or “blobs.” The variety of these transient features may highlight the richness of phenomena that could occur near helmet streamers: emergence of…