The injection problem at pickup proton-rich quasi-parallel interplanetary shocks

Physics

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We have performed a number of numerical experiments to study the interaction of interstellar pickup protons and helium ions with quasi-parallel stationary shocks. The collisionless shocks are modeled by the hybrid simulation method which treats the ions as macroparticles and the electrons as a massless background fluid. Solar wind protons, alpha particles, pickup H+ and He+ are included selfconsistently. Particle splitting allows to follow the distribution function over many orders in magnitude. The pickup ion distributions are modeled as spherical shells in velocity space convected with the solar wind. Pickup ions are rather efficiently reflected; the reflection coefficient, measured as the ratio of incident to reflected ions, is at shocks with low contributions of pickup ions of the order of 50%. The preferred injection of pickup helium relative to solar wind alpha particles can lead to equal intensities of both species above a few times the ion velocity (normalized to shock velocity) at 4 5 AU. When the pickup proton intensity relative to solar wind protons increases the efficiency for injection of pickup protons decreases, while the reflection coefficient for less abundant pickup ions is only little effected. This leads to an overabundance of heavy ions relative to protons. The reflection coefficient of pickup ions is relatively independent of the angle between the magnetic field and the shock normal.

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