Other
Scientific paper
Apr 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....12151s&link_type=abstract
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #12151
Other
Scientific paper
The traditionally accepted source of Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACRs) is neutral atoms from the local interstellar cloud (LIC) that drift into the heliosphere, become ionized, then picked up and carried out to the solar wind's termination shock where they are accelerated to 100's of MeV/nucleon. The composition of ACRs should be depleted in easily ionized atoms such as C, Si, and Fe, since they are mostly ionized in the LIC and therefore cannot drift into the heliosphere against the solar wind. Nonetheless, significant fluxes of C, Si, and Fe ions are observed in ACRs, and their source was not previously known. We have discovered an "outer source" of atoms sputtered in the outer solar system from small grains originating in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Like the interstellar neutrals, the outer source atoms become ionized, picked up, and carried with the solar wind to the termination shock where they are accelerated to ACR energies. The outer source is sufficiently rich with easily ionized elements such as C, Si, and Fe to account for the unexplained component of ACRs. The discovery provides a new tool for using ACRs to probe the mass distribution and composition of the Kuiper Belt, and for probing how plasma and dust interact in stellar environments. The outer source makes an essential connection in the solar system between dust and energetic particles, a connection that has broad implications for the history of our solar system, and for other stellar environments.
McComas Dave
Schwadron Nathan
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