Development of a Semi-empirical Model for STE PAD Broadening Associated with Pseudostreamer Solar Wind

We describe the ongoing development of a semi-empirical model for the broadening of the strahl of the suprathermal electron pitch angle distribution in pseudostreamer and pseudostreamer-adjacent solar wind. The model is motivated by in-situ observational signatures during pseudostreamer solar wind intervals and recent MHD simulations of interchange reconnection. We discuss the implications of this simple STE PAD model as a potential consequence of the large-scale Alfvénic fluctuations generated by interchange reconnection, which preferentially occur at separatrix and quasi-separatrix surfaces. We present two applications of this model: (1) to create synthetic STE PAD distributions in a time-dependent 3D MHD simulation of pseudostreamer reconnection dynamics; and (2) to examine how well a PFSS-based stationary S-web/Q-map configuration of the solar corona can account for the observed STE PADs’ spatiotemporal variation during a recent Parker Solar Probe encounter of multiple pseudostreamer S-web arcs.