Hybrid Simulations of Perpendicular Termination Shocks: Consequences of Variations in Pickup Ion Distributions

Details Hybrid Simulations of Perpendicular Termination Shocks: Consequences of Variations in Pickup Ion Distributions Hybrid Simulations of Perpendicular Termination Shocks: Consequences of Variations in Pickup Ion Distributions

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufmsh31a1472w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #SH31A-1472

Physics

Plasma Physics

[7811] Space Plasma Physics / Discontinuities, [7846] Space Plasma Physics / Plasma Energization, [7851] Space Plasma Physics / Shock Waves

Scientific paper

Wu et al. [2009] used the Los Alamos hybrid simulation code to simulate perpendicular termination shocks with varying pickup ion relative density, assuming that upstream pickup ions form a velocity shell. We found that pickup ions gain about 90% of the downstream thermal pressure, consistent with Voyager 2 observations. The solar wind ion temperature jump is larger than that of the pickup ion because some solar wind ions are specularly reflected, unlike pickup ions which are heated through a gyro-phase dependent process. Here we continue to use the hybrid code to explore the consequences of different pickup ion velocity distributions upstream of a perpendicular termination shock. The assumed distributions are a velocity ring, a velocity shell, a velocity sphere, a Vasyliunas-Siscoe distribution and a Maxwellian, corresponding to various levels of thermalization for pickup ions upstream of the termination shock. The effective pickup ion beta is the same for each of the five hybrid simulations. The downstream ion speed distribution is found to be almost the same for each case, with two Maxwellians providing a good fit independent of the upstream pickup ion velocity distributions. The solar wind ions are thermalized into a core Maxwellian with an overall temperature jump of ~10, consistent with Voyager 2 observations. Reference Wu, P., D. Winske, S. P. Gary, N. A. Schwadron and M. A. Lee (2009), Energy dissipation and ion heating at the heliospheric termination shock, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2009JA014240.

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