A new inner heliosphere proton parameter data set from the Helios mission

TL;DR

This paper reprocesses Helios mission data to produce a reliable, open dataset of proton parameters in the inner heliosphere, serving as a benchmark for future solar wind studies.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic reprocessing method for Helios ion data, providing a reproducible dataset of proton parameters for the inner heliosphere.

Findings

Radial trends of proton density, velocity, and temperatures are characterized.

The dataset is openly available for the research community.

A source code for data processing is provided.

Abstract

In the near future, Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter will provide the first comprehensive in-situ measurements of the solar wind in the inner heliosphere since the Helios mission in the 1970s. We describe a reprocessing of the original Helios ion distribution functions to provide reliable and reproducible data to characterise the proton core population of the solar wind in the inner heliosphere. A systematic fitting of bi-Maxwellian distribution functions was performed to the raw Helios ion distribution function data to extract the proton core number density, velocity, and temperatures parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field. We present radial trends of these derived proton parameters, forming a benchmark from which new measurements in the inner heliosphere will be compared to. The new dataset has been made openly available for other researchers to use, along with the source code used to generate it.