Synthetically constructed 2D and 1D distributions of HMF vector measurements and resulting statistics. Similarly to Fig. 3, each panel shows a 2D synthetic distribution of B_T R² - B_RR² drawn (see main text) from a mean value and standard deviation in clock angle (α) and field magnitude (|B|). A separate distribution for sunward (S) and Anti-sunward (AS) sectors are drawn. The colour-map shows the full distribution,and blue and red contours show the 90th percentile of the S and AS sectors. A white dashed line depicts the mean clock angle. The text above each panel describes the standard deviation in angle in radians and field magnitude normalised by mean field (we note that both are dimensionless such that their relative balance is apparent). Red and blue circles indicate the AS and S central (“true”) values, respectively. Above each panel is the resulting 1D distribution, with blue and red curves showing the individual distributions and black showing the joint distribution. Solid, dotted, and dashed lines show the results of the PSM, the distribution mode, and the distribution mean as measured from that distribution,respectively. The top row shows the case for fluctuations in the clock angle dominating over fluctuations in magnitude, while the bottom row shows balanced fluctuations. From left to right, the mean clock angle increases from 12° to 45°, which is approximately the range of angles probed by PSP as its heliocentric distance varies.