TRANSPORT OF HELIUM PICKUP IONS WITHIN THE FOCUSING CONE: RECONCILING STEREO OBSERVATIONS WITH IBEX

ABSTRACT Recent observations of the pickup helium focusing cone by STEREO/Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition indicate an inflow longitude of the interstellar wind that differs from the observations of IBEX by . It has been under debate whether the transport of helium pickup ions with an anisotr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2016-06, Vol.824 (2), p.142-142
Main Authors: Quinn, P. R., Schwadron, N. A., Möbius, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Density
Helium
ISM: atoms
Mean free path
Progenitors (astrophysics)
Scattering
Solar wind
Sun: magnetic fields
Transport
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Summary:ABSTRACT Recent observations of the pickup helium focusing cone by STEREO/Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition indicate an inflow longitude of the interstellar wind that differs from the observations of IBEX by . It has been under debate whether the transport of helium pickup ions with an anisotropic velocity distribution is the cause of this difference. If so, the roughly field-aligned pickup ion streaming relative to the solar wind should create a shift in the pickup ion density relative to the focusing cone. A large pickup ion streaming depends on the size of the mean free path. Therefore, the observed longitudinal shift in the pickup ion density relative to the neutral focusing cone may carry fundamental information about the mean free path experienced by pickup ions inside 1 au. We test this hypothesis using the Energetic Particle Radiation Environment Module (EPREM) model by simulating the transport of helium pickup ions within the focusing cone finding a mean free path of au. We calculate the average azimuthal velocity of pickup ions and find that the anisotropic distribution reaches ∼8% of the solar wind speed. Lastly, we isolate transport effects within EPREM, finding that pitch-angle scattering, adiabatic focusing, perpendicular diffusion, and particle drift contribute to shifting the focusing cone 20.00%, 69.43%, 10.56%, and , respectively. Thus we show with the EPREM model that the transport of pickup ions does indeed shift the peak of the focusing cone relative to the progenitor neutral atoms and this shift provides fundamental information on the scattering of pickup ions inside 1 au.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/0004-637X/824/2/142