The Evolution of Ion Distributions and the Associated ENA Production at the Heliospheric Termination Shock: Hybrid Simulations

Details The Evolution of Ion Distributions and the Associated ENA Production at the Heliospheric Termination Shock: Hybrid Simulations The Evolution of Ion Distributions and the Associated ENA Production at the Heliospheric Termination Shock: Hybrid Simulations

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsh14a..07k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SH14A-07

Physics

Plasma Physics

[7807] Space Plasma Physics / Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration, [7837] Space Plasma Physics / Neutral Particles, [7851] Space Plasma Physics / Shock Waves, [7867] Space Plasma Physics / Wave/Particle Interactions

Scientific paper

The interstellar Boundary Explorer IBEX provided several sets of Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) sky maps in the energy range 0.1-6keV/n. All of these maps include a very prominent and unexpected feature in the sky, i.e. the "Ribbon". The physical processes that lead to its generation are still not understood and are currently under intensive investigation. ENAs originate from charge exchange of energetic ions at the Termination Shock (TS), in the heliosheath, or even beyond with neutral interstellar gas. During that process the interstellar neutral exchange its charge with a fast moving ion and this ion becomes a fast moving energetic neutral atom. The energy of the ENA is therefore the original energy of the charged component. The shape and the evolution of the ion distributions in phase space in specific regions in the heliosphere and the local interstellar medium is closely related to the turbulence and wave particle interaction and vice versa. Depending on the shock strength and composition the spatial/temporal evolution of slope on the energy spectrum and the phase space distribution is an indicator of the location at/behind the shock. Since, the efficiency of ENA production depends on the charge exchange rate and the phase space density of the ions, the ENA spectrum observed by IBEX at Earth's orbit provides information on the location of the source region(s) and their variability that produces the Ribbon ENAs. Hybrid simulations appear to be a useful tool to relate the ENA spectra to ion distributions at the perpendicular shock and to study their behavior because ions are treated as particles and electrons as a charge neutralizing fluid. We performed hybrid simulations using different shock normal angles that are characteristic for specific regions at the TS and beyond, and investigated the spatial/temporal evolution of solar wind, pickup ion and ENA distributions under the impact of self-generated turbulence.

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