Hydrogen deflection in the heliosphere and the effect of local interstellar magnetic field
Abstract
The interaction of solar wind plasma with the local interstellar medium is studied using a coupled 3D Kinetic-MHD model. We show that the deflection of hydrogen atoms that penetrates the heliosphere is affected by the orientation and magnitude of the local interstellar magnetic field (BLISM) as well as by the kinetic treatment of neutral H atoms. We show that the observed deflection by Lallement et al (2005, 2010) of interstellar neutral hydrogen flow at the inner-heliosphere is attained for different orientations and magnitudes of BLISM. The hydrogen deflection plane (HDP, that is the plane containing the He and H vector directions) is not a unique indicator for defining both the BLISM orientation and magnitude. This study is done for a high intensity field, BLISM (4.4µG), based on the analysis of the heliospheric asymmetries (Opher et al. 2009) which used multi-fluid model of solar wind and local interstellar interaction. Comparisons between the kinetic and multi-fluid treatments of neutrals showed substantial reduction in the hydrogen deflection for the kinetic approach.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMSH21A1800A
- Keywords:
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- 0654 ELECTROMAGNETICS / Plasmas;
- 7524 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY / Magnetic fields;
- 7827 SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS / Kinetic and MHD theory;
- 7959 SPACE WEATHER / Models