Sunward Strahl: A Method to Unambiguously Determine Open Solar Flux from In Situ Spacecraft Measurements Using Suprathermal Electron Data

A fraction of the magnetic flux which threads the photosphere reaches sufficient coronal altitude to be dragged out by the solar wind and form the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF). Directly measuring this “open solar flux” (OSF) component, however, is difficult. While OSF can be extrapolated from photospheric magnetic field measurements, the most direct method is from in situ spacecraft measurements of the HMF. The difficultly is unambiguously...