Correlation length for interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations

Abstract

It is argued that it is appropriate to consider two correlation lengths for interplanetary magnetic field fluctuations. For particles with gyro-radii large enough to encounter and be scattered by large-scale tangential discontinuities in the field (particles with energies several GeV/nucleon) the appropriate correlation length is simply the mean spatial separation between the discontinuities, L -2x10 cm.