Domination of heliosheath pressure by shock-accelerated pickup ions from observations of neutral atoms

Details Domination of heliosheath pressure by shock-accelerated pickup ions from observations of neutral atoms Domination of heliosheath pressure by shock-accelerated pickup ions from observations of neutral atoms

Jul 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008natur.454...81w&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 454, Issue 7200, pp. 81-83 (2008).

Physics

12

Scientific paper

The solar wind blows an immense magnetic bubble, the heliosphere, in the local interstellar medium (mostly neutral gas) flowing by the Sun. Recent measurements by Voyager 2 across the termination shock, where the solar wind is slowed to subsonic speeds before entering the heliosheath, found that the shocked solar wind plasma contains only ~20 per cent of the energy released by the termination shock, whereas energetic particles above ~28keV contain only ~10 per cent; ~70 per cent of the energy is unaccounted for, leading to speculation that the unmeasured pickup ions or energetic particles below 28keV contain the missing energy. Here we report the detection and mapping of heliosheath energetic (~4-20keV) neutral atoms produced by charge exchange of suprathermal ions with interstellar neutral atoms. The energetic neutral atoms come from a source ~60° wide in longitude straddling the direction of the local interstellar medium. Their energy spectra resemble those of solar wind pickup ions, but with a knee at ~11keV instead of ~4keV, indicating that their parent ions are pickup ions energized by the termination shock. These termination-shock-energized pickup ions contain the missing ~70 per cent of the energy dissipated in the termination shock, and they dominate the pressure in the heliosheath.

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