Related papers: Interstellar Pickup Ion Observations to 38 AU
Pickup ions are created when interstellar neutral atoms resonantly exchange charge with the solar wind (SW) ions, especially in the supersonic part of the wind, where they carry most of the plasma pressure. Here we present numerical…
Non-thermal pickup ions (PUIs) are created in the solar wind (SW) by charge-exchange between SW ions (SWIs) and slow interstellar neutral atoms. It has long been theorized, but not directly observed, that PUIs should be preferentially…
Pickup ion distributions vary substantially on a variety of time scales, although their sources may be relatively steady. This complicates their use as probes of the heliospheric and local interstellar particle populations. Interstellar He+…
We present a recent analysis with 1996 SOHO CELIAS CTOF data, which reveals correlations of He+ pickup ion fluxes and spectra with the magnetic field strength and solar wind density. The motivation is to better understand the ubiquitous…
The acceleration of interstellar pick-up ions as well as solar wind species has been observed at a multitude of interplanetary (IP) shocks by different spacecraft. The efficiency of injection of the pick-up ion component differs from that…
By reevaluating a 13-month stretch of Ulysses SWICS H pickup ion measurements near 5 AU close to the ecliptic right after the previous solar minimum, this paper presents a determination of the neutral interstellar H density at the solar…
The pickup protons originate as a result of the ionization of hydrogen atoms in the supersonic solar wind, forming the suprathermal component of protons in the heliosphere. While picked by the heliospheric magnetic field and convected into…
We study the distribution of the interstellar neutral (ISN) gas density and the pick-up ion (PUI) density of hydrogen, helium, neon, and oxygen in the heliosphere for heliocentric distances from inside 1 au up to the solar wind termination…
Interstellar pickup ions originate from the neutral interstellar medium, are ionized in the heliosphere, and picked up by the solar wind. They initially form a torus-shaped velocity distribution function, which is generally believed to be…
Data from the Voyager probes and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer have revealed the importance of pick-up ions (PUIs) in understanding the character and behavior of the outer heliosphere, the region of interaction between the solar wind…
The extreme temperatures and non-thermal nature of the solar corona and solar wind arise from an unidentified physical mechanism that preferentially heats certain ion species relative to others. Spectroscopic indicators of unequal…
This study provides a detailed analysis of fourteen distant interplanetary shocks observed by the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument onboard New Horizons. These shocks were observed with a pickup ion data cadence of approximately 30…
The transition between the supersonic solar wind and the subsonic heliosheath, the termination shock (TS), was observed by Voyager 2 (V2) on 2007 August 31-September 1 at a distance of 84 AU from the Sun. The data reveal multiple crossings…
Interstellar Pickup ions (PUIs) play a significant part in mediating the solar wind (SW) interaction with the interstellar medium. In this paper, we examine the details of spatial variation of the PUI velocity distribution function (VDF) in…
The shape of the solar wind bubble within the interstellar medium, the so-called heliosphere, has been explored over six decades. As the Sun moves through the surrounding partially-ionized medium, neutral hydrogen atoms penetrate the…
The Sun is moving through a warm ($\sim$6500 K) and partly ionized local interstellar cloud (LIC) with a velocity of $\sim$26 km/s. Recent measurements of the ionization of the LIC (Wolff et al., 1999) suggest that interstellar helium in…
In recent years, a phenomenological solar wind heating model based on a turbulent energy cascade prescribed by the Kolmogorov theory has produced reasonably good agreement with observations on proton temperatures out to distances around 70…
Over decades of solar wind observations, heavy ions have been observed to have a higher temperature and flow faster than protons in the solar corona and heliosphere. Remote observations have largely been limited to the low corona ($<…
Context. Since 1996, during periods of low solar activity, the HSTOF instrument onboard the SOHO satellite has been measuring weak fluxes of He atoms of 28-58 keV/n (helium energetic neutral atoms - He ENA). The probable source region is…
The acceleration of interstellar pick-up ions as well as solar wind species has been observed at a multitude of interplanetary (IP) shocks by different spacecraft. This paper expands upon previous work modeling the phase space distributions…