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Detailed Reference Information |
Gloeckler, G., Geiss, J., Roelof, E.C., Fisk, L.A., Ipavich, F.M., Ogilvie, K.W., Lanzerotti, L.J., von Steiger, R. and Wilken, B. (1994). Acceleration of interstellar pickup ions in the disturbed solar wind observed on Ulysses. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: doi: 10.1029/94JA01509. issn: 0148-0227. |
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Acceleration of interstellar pickup H+ and He+ as well as of solar wind protons and alpha particles has been observed on Ulysses during the passage of a corotating interaction region (CIR) at ~4.5 AU. Injection efficiencies for both the high thermal speed interstellar pickup ions (H+ and He+) and the low thermal speed solar wind ions (H+ and He++) are derived using velocity distribution functions of protons, pickup He+ and alpha particles from <1 to 60 keV/e and of ions (principally protons) above ~60 keV. The observed spatial variations of the few keV and the few hundred keV accelerated pickup protons across the forward shock of the CIR indicate a two stage acceleration mechanism. Thermal ions are first accelerated to speeds of 3 to 4 times the solar wind speed inside the CIR, presumably by some statistical mechanism, before reaching higher energies by a shock acceleration process. Our results also indicate that (1) the injection efficiencies for pickup ions are almost 100 times higher than they are for solar wind ions, (2) pickup H+ and He+ are the two most abundant suprathermal ion species and they carry a large fraction of the particle thermal pressure, (3) the injection efficiency is highest for protons, lowest for He+, and intermediate for alpha particles, (4) both H+ and He+ have identical spectral shapes above the cutoff speed for pickup ions, and (5) the solar wind frame velocity distribution function of protons has the form F(w)=FOw-4 for 1<w<~5, where w is the ion speed divided by the solar wind speed. Above w~5--10 the proton spectrum becomes steeper. These results have important implications concerning acceleration of ions by shocks and CIRs, acceleration of anomalous cosmic rays, and particle dynamics in the outer heliosphere. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1994 |
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Abstract |
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Keywords
Interplanetary Physics, Energetic particles, Interplanetary Physics, Plasma waves and turbulence, Space Plasma Physics, Charged particle motion and acceleration, Space Plasma Physics, Kinetic and MHD theory |
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Publisher
American Geophysical Union 2000 Florida Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009-1277 USA 1-202-462-6900 1-202-328-0566 service@agu.org |
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