Direct observations of interstellar H, He, and O by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer

Oblique and rippled heliosphere structures from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer

Past analysis has shown that the heliosphere structure can be deduced from correlations between long-scale solar wind pressure evolution and energetic neutral atom emissions. However, this required spatial and temporal averaging that smoothed out small or dynamic features of the heliosphere. In late 2014, the solar wind dynamic pressure increased by roughly 50% over a period of 6 months, causing a time and directional-dependent rise in around 2-6 keV energetic neutral atom fluxes from the heliosphere observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer. Here, we use the 2014 pressure enhancement to provide a simultaneous derivation of the three-dimensional heliospheric termination shock (HTS) and heliopause (HP) distances at high resolution from Interstellar Boundary Explorer measurements. The analysis reveals rippled HTS and HP surfaces that are oblique with respect to the local interstellar medium upwind direction, with significant asymmetries in the heliosphere structure compared to steady-state heliosphere models. We estimate that the heliosphere boundaries contain roughly ten astronomical unit-sized spatial variations, with slightly larger variations on the HTS surface than the HP and a large-scale, southwards-directed obliquity of the surfaces in the meridional plane. Comparisons of the derived HTS and HP distances with Voyager observations indicate substantial differences in the heliosphere boundaries in the northern versus southern hemispheres and their motion over time.

The Heliosphere and Local Interstellar Medium from Neutral Atom Observations at Energies Below 10 keV

As the heliosphere moves through the surrounding interstellar medium, a fraction of the interstellar neutral helium, hydrogen, and heavier species crossing the heliopause make it to the inner heliosphere as neutral atoms with energies ranging from few eV to several hundred eV. In addition, energetic neutral hydrogen atoms originating from solar wind protons and from pick-up ions are created through charge-exchange with interstellar atoms. This review summarizes all observations of heliospheric energetic neutral atoms and interstellar neutrals at energies below 10 keV. Most of these data were acquired with the Interstellar Boundary Explorer launched in 2008. Among many other IBEX breakthroughs, it provided the first ever all-sky maps of energetic neutral atoms from the heliosphere and enabled the science community to measure in-situ interstellar neutral hydrogen, oxygen, and neon for the first time. These observations have revolutionized and keep challenging our understanding of the heliosphere shaped by the combined forces of the local interstellar flow, the local interstellar magnetic field, and the time-dependent solar wind.

In Situ Observations of Interstellar Pickup Ions from 1 au to the Outer Heliosphere

Interstellar pickup ions are an ubiquitous and thermodynamically important component of the solar wind plasma in the heliosphere. These PUIs are born from the ionization of the interstellar neutral gas, consisting of hydrogen, helium, and trace amounts of heavier elements, in the solar wind as the heliosphere moves through the local interstellar medium. As cold interstellar neutral atoms become ionized, they form an energetic ring beam distribution comoving with the solar wind. Subsequent scattering in pitch angle by intrinsic and self-generated turbulence and their advection with the radially expanding solar wind leads to the formation of a filled-shell PUI distribution, whose density and pressure relative to the thermal solar wind ions grows with distance from the Sun. This paper reviews the history of in situ measurements of interstellar PUIs in the heliosphere. Starting with the first detection in the 1980s, interstellar PUIs were identified by their highly nonthermal distribution with a cutoff at twice the solar wind speed. Measurements of the PUI distribution shell cutoff and the He focusing cone, a downwind region of increased density formed by the solar gravity, have helped characterize the properties of the interstellar gas from near-Earth vantage points. The preferential heating of interstellar PUIs compared to the core solar wind has become evident in the existence of suprathermal PUI tails, the nonadiabatic cooling index of the PUI distribution, and PUIs' mediation of interplanetary shocks. Unlike the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft, New Horizon's Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument is taking the only direct measurements of interstellar PUIs in the outer heliosphere, currently out to ∼ 47 au from the Sun or halfway to the heliospheric termination shock.

Slowdown and Heating of Interstellar Neutral Helium by Elastic Collisions Beyond the Heliopause

Direct sampling of interstellar neutral (ISN) atoms close to the Sun enables studies of the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) around the heliosphere. The primary population of ISN helium atoms has, until now, been assumed to reflect the pristine VLISM conditions at the heliopause. Consequently, the atoms observed at 1 au by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) were used to determine the VLISM temperature and velocity relative to the Sun, without accounting for elastic collisions with other species outside the heliopause. Here, we evaluate the effect of these collisions on the primary ISN helium population. We follow trajectories of helium atoms and track their collisions with slowed plasma and interstellar hydrogen atoms ahead of the heliopause. Atoms typically collide a few times in the outer heliosheath, and only ~1.5% of the atoms are not scattered at all. We use calculated differential cross sections to randomly choose scattering angles in these collisions. We estimate that the resulting primary ISN helium atoms at the heliopause are slowed down by ~0.45 km s^-1 and heated by ~1100 K compared to the pristine VLISM. The resulting velocity distribution is asymmetric and shows an extended tail in the antisunward direction. Accounting for this change in the parameters derived from IBEX observations gives the Sun's relative speed of 25.85 km s^-1 and temperature of 6400 K in the pristine VLISM. Finally, this paper serves as a source of the differential cross sections for elastic collisions with helium atoms.

Turbulence in the Local Interstellar Medium and the IBEX Ribbon

The effects of turbulence in the very local interstellar medium (VLISM) have been proposed by Giacalone & Jokipii (2015) to be important in determining the structure of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) ribbon via particle trapping by magnetic mirroring. We further explore this effect by simulating the motion of charged particles in a turbulent magnetic field superposed on a large-scale mean field, which we consider to be either spatially-uniform or a draped field derived from a 3D MHD simulation. We find that the ribbon is not double-peaked, in contrast to Giacalone & Jokipii (2015). However, the magnetic mirror force still plays an important role in trapping particles. Furthermore, the ribbon's thickness is considerably larger if the large-scale mean field is draped around the heliosphere. Voyager 1 observations in the VLISM show a turbulent field component that is stronger than previously thought, which we test in our simulation. We find that the inclusion of turbulent fluctuations at scales ≳100 au and power consistent with Voyager 1 observations produces a ribbon whose large-scale structure is inconsistent with IBEX observations. However, restricting fluctuations to <100 au produces a smoother ribbon structure similar to IBEX observations. Different turbulence realizations produce different small-scale features (≲10°) in the ribbon, but its large-scale structure is robust if the maximum fluctuation size is ≲50 au. This suggests that the magnetic field structure at scales ≲50 au is determined by the heliosphere-VLISM interaction and cannot entirely be represented by pristine interstellar turbulence.

Strong Scattering of ~keV Pickup Ions in the Local Interstellar Magnetic Field Draped Around Our Heliosphere: Implications for the IBEX Ribbon's Source and IMAP

The leading hypothesis for the origin of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) "ribbon" of enhanced energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) from the outer heliosphere is the secondary ENA mechanism, whereby neutralized solar wind ions escape the heliosphere and, after several charge-exchange processes, may propagate back toward Earth primarily in directions perpendicular to the local interstellar magnetic field (ISMF). However, the physical processes governing the parent protons outside of the heliopause are still unconstrained. In this study, we compute the "spatial retention" model proposed by Schwadron & McComas (2013) in a 3D simulated heliosphere. In their model, pickup ions outside the heliopause that originate from the neutral solar wind are spatially-retained in a region of space via strong pitch angle scattering before becoming ENAs. We find that the ribbon's intensity and shape can vary greatly depending on the pitch angle scattering rate both inside and outside the spatial retention region, potentially contributing to the globally distributed flux. The draping of the ISMF around the heliopause creates an asymmetry in the average distance to the ribbon's source as well as an asymmetry in the ribbon's shape, i.e., radial cross section of ENA flux through the circular ribbon. The spatial retention model adds an additional asymmetry to the ribbon's shape due to the enhancement of ions in the retention region close to the heliopause. Finally, we demonstrate how the ribbon's structure observed at 1 au is affected by different instrument capabilities, and how the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) may observe the ribbon.

The Role of Pickup Ion Dynamics Outside of the Heliopause in the Limit of Weak Pitch Angle Scattering: Implications for the Source of the IBEX Ribbon

We present a new model of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) ribbon based on the secondary energetic neutral atom (ENA) mechanism, under the assumption that there is negligible pitch angle scattering of pickup ions (PUIs) outside the heliopause. Using the results of an MHD-plasma/kinetic-neutral simulation of the heliosphere, we generate PUIs in the outer heliosheath, solve their transport using guiding center theory, and compute ribbon ENA fluxes at 1 AU. We implement several aspects of the PUI dynamics, including (1) parallel motion along the local interstellar magnetic field (ISMF), (2) advective transport with the interstellar plasma, (3) the mirror force acting on PUIs propagating along the ISMF, and (4) betatron acceleration of PUIs as they are advected within an increasing magnetic field towards the heliopause. We find that ENA fluxes at 1 AU are reduced when PUIs are allowed to move along the ISMF, and ENA fluxes are reduced even more by the inclusion of the mirror force, which pushes particles away from IBEX lines-of-sight. Inclusion of advection and betatron acceleration do not result in any significant change in the ribbon. Interestingly, the mirror force reduces the ENA fluxes from the inner edge of the ribbon more than its outer edge, effectively reducing the ribbon's width by ∼6° and increasing its radius projected on the sky. This is caused by the asymmetric draping of the ISMF around the heliopause, such that ENAs from the ribbon's inner edge originate closer to the heliopause, where the mirror force is strongest.