Fig. 1

Illustration of the ideal torus VDF of freshly injected PUIs. Panel a: 3D illustration, where vx corresponds to the radial direction with respect to the Sun. PUIs at rest are injected into the solar wind plasma with a torus VDF that lies on a shell around the solar wind velocity. The radius of the shell equals the solar wind speed. The green line shows the velocity space trajectory of the PUIs around B. The guiding center velocity of the torus, vGC, is shown with the green vector. Furthermore, the latitudinal angle, ΘGC, of the guiding center velocity is illustrated. Panel b: 2D cut through the vx -vy plane of the configuration shown in panel a. For the intersection of the torus with the vx -vy plane, the velocity vectors in the spacecraft and solar wind frame of reference are shown. The area marked by the blue solid lines depicts PLASTIC’s coverage in velocity space. It is not symmetrical about vx , because of STEREO A’s tangential eigen-velocity of 30 km s−1. Freshly injected PUIs would obviously not be observed by PLASTIC under this IMF orientation. The angle ΦGC corresponds to the azimuthal angle of the guiding center velocity.
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