Our evolving heliosphere: The first three years of IBEX observations

Details Our evolving heliosphere: The first three years of IBEX observations Our evolving heliosphere: The first three years of IBEX observations

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsh14a..05m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SH14A-05

Physics

[2100] Interplanetary Physics, [2124] Interplanetary Physics / Heliopause And Solar Wind Termination, [2126] Interplanetary Physics / Heliosphere/Interstellar Medium Interactions, [2151] Interplanetary Physics / Neutral Particles

Scientific paper

Every six months, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) produces full sky maps of Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs) traveling in from the heliospheric interface. Because of the Earth's motion around the Sun, each look direction in space is sampled twice per year, with alternate measurements as IBEX sensors ram into or recede away from the incoming ENAs. Thus, the prior study of ENA time variations, using only the first year of IBEX data, required a model-dependant transformation of ENA fluxes. In this study we examine the first three years (six maps) of IBEX data, which allows direct comparison of measurements from the same parts of Earth's orbit, directly in the spacecraft frame. In addition, in this study, we explicitly correct for losses of heliospheric ENAs due to reionization (extinction) as neutrals propagate in from the outer heliosphere. Together, these advances allow us to provide a much more detailed analysis of time variations in the IBEX ENA measurements. These observations confirm and extend the "big picture" prior results [McComas et al., JGR, 2010] that 1) the ENA fluxes and thus heliospheric interaction is largely stable over the 2009-2011 timeframe, and 2) there are smaller scale, statistically significant time variations in these fluxes, particularly related to the narrow "ribbon" of enhanced ENA emissions that IBEX discovered, superposed on the more smoothly varying, globally distributed ENA flux. This paper examines temporal variations of ENA fluxes, which provide critical new information about the outer heliosphere and its global interaction with the galaxy, as well as illuminating possible mechanisms for producing the IBEX ribbon and generally illuminating the physical processes at work at the heliosphere's interface with the local interstellar medium.

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