EGU2020-3945 https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-3945 EGU General Assembly 2020 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Mechanisms of formation of multiple current sheets in the heliospheric plasma sheet Evgeniy Maiewski1, Helmi Malova2,3, Roman Kislov3,4, Victor Popov5, Anatoly Petrukovich3, and Lev Zelenyi3 1National Research University”Higher School of Economics”, Moscow, Russian Federation ([email protected]) 2Scobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia ([email protected]) 3Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia 4Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IZMIRAN), Moscow, Russia 5Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia When spacecraft cross the heliospheric plasma sheet (HPS) that separates large-scale magnetic sectors of the opposite direction in the solar wind, multiple rapid fluctuations of a sign of the radial magnetic field component are observed very often, indicating the presence of multiple current sheets occurring within the HPS. Possible mechanisms of formation of these structures in the solar wind are proposed. Taking into accout that the streamer belt in the solar corona is believed to be the main source of the slow solar wind in the heliosphere, we suggest that the effect of the multi-layered HPS is determined by the extension of many streamer-belt-borne thin current sheets oriented along the neutral line of the interplanetary magnetic field. Within the framework of a proposed MHD model, self-consistent distributions of the key solar wind characteristics which depend on streamer propreties are investigated. It is shown that both single and multiple streamers that are capable of reaching a remote boundary surface can form the observed multiple current sheets with azimuthal currents alternating in direction inside the HPS. The implications of these results for the interpretation of observations in the solar wind are discussed. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org).