Fine-scale characteristics of interplanetary sector boundaries

The study examines the structure of the interplanetary sector boundaries observed by Helios 1 within sector transition regions during the time interval from December 1974 to April 1975. The transition regions are found to be complex in character, consisting of intermediate average field orientations in some cases as well as a number of large-angle directional discontinuities (DDs). It is suggested that the observed DDs represent multiple traversals of the global heliospheric current sheet caused by local fluctuations in the position of the sheet. There is evidence that such fluctuations are sometimes produced by wavelike motions or surface corrugations of scale length 0.05-0.1 AU, superimposed on the large-scale structure.