Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufmsh51b..04h&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #SH51B-04
Other
2104 Cosmic Rays, 2114 Energetic Particles (7514), 2124 Heliopause And Solar Wind Termination, 2126 Heliosphere/Interstellar Medium Interactions, 2139 Interplanetary Shocks
Scientific paper
Above solar wind and pickup ion energies of a few keV/nucleon and below the 100s of MeV/nucleon galactic cosmic ray energies there are several populations of ions near the termination shock (TS), where once there was expected to be just one, the ubiquitous anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs), at ~50--100s of MeV. Upstream in the termination foreshock (TFS) are highly anisotropic foreshock particles, with measured energies from ~40 keV--50 MeV, and possibly an underlying population of suprathermal particles, beginning above a few keV. Downstream in the heliosheath (HS) are slowly varying HS particles, measured from ~40 keV up to perhaps 100s of MeV. In the HS and TFS there are spectral features at a few MeV, which may be due to a "third source" of particles resulting from details of geometry and/or injection at the TS, perhaps differing up and downstream. The spatial source and physical processes responsible for origin of these populations are totally unknown, as evidenced by the current exciting proliferation of new theories and explanations. For example, the ACRs could come from locations distant from Voyager 1 and 2 (V1 and V2), near the spacecraft but under conditions unlike those encountered by V1, or perhaps deeper in the heliosheath---and the energization could be due to diffusive shock acceleration or heating in compressional turbulence, among other explanations. We systematically analyze the details of a still unpublicized trove of observations from the Low Energy Charged Particle experiment. In particular the temporal and spatial dependence of the intensities, spectra, composition, and anisotropies of these populations are used to probe their origins and transport histories. For example, in 2006, during interplanetary disturbances at V2 and possibly V1 there are intensity drops at high energies and at the peaks of the ACR spectra, but not at lower energies, and the composition, spectral variations, and anisotropies are energy and time dependent. The much-needed introduction of fresh facts into the community discussion will serve to help untangle the knot of unresolved questions arising from our first foray into the boundary between the heliosphere and local interstellar cloud.
Decker Robert B.
Hill Matthew E.
Krimigis Stamatios M.
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