The underlying magnetic field direction in Ulysses observations of the southern polar heliosphere

Between May 1993 and January 1995, the Ulysses spacecraft has probed the southern polar heliosphere at latitudes greater than 30 deg S, reaching a maximum latitude of 80.2 deg S in September 1994. Using hourly averages of the data obtained by the magnetometer experiment on Ulysses we have studied the underlying direction of the magnetic field threading this region of the heliosphere, away from the influence of the magnetic sector structure which complicates similar analyses in the ecliptic plane. We have constructed histograms of the measured magnetic field direction using the simple Parker spiral model field direction as a reference. We find that throughout this region the meridional angle between the field vector and the Parker model direction has a distribution which is symmetric and has a most probable value consistent with the model. At latitudes below about 60 deg S the azimuthal angle distribution also has a most probable value consistent with the model but this distribution is highly asymmetric with a greater number of observations of field lines less tightly wound than the expected spiral direction. At latitudes greater than 60 deg S the most probable value of the azimuthal angle is found to have become nearly 30 more tightly wound than the expected direction, but due to the asymmetric distribution still with a greater number of observations less tightly wound than expected. We consider possible causes of both the asymmetry in the distributions and the shift in the most probable value at the highest latitudes, one of which may be the presence of large amplitude, long period Alfven waves in the magnetic field originating from the Sun's southern polar coronal hole.