Effects of the Solar Cycle on Interstellar Hydrogen Rates Observed by IBEX
Abstract
As the sun moves through the LISM, neutral atoms that consist of H, He, O, and Ne, travel through the heliosphere and can be detected by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX). Interstellar hydrogen (ISH) atoms, with a presumed drifting Maxwellian distribution function, travel on hyperbolic trajectories and are subject to solar gravity and solar radiation pressure as well as ionization processes. The radiation pressure likely overcompensates for the gravitational force, which makes the ISH atoms decelerate on their trajectories and shifts in the observational longitude of the peak of the ISH flow. Charge exchange at the heliospheric interface leads to filtration of the primary ISH and creation of the secondary ISH with a much hotter and slower distribution function. We apply corrected ISH flux to study hydrogen signal variations over ten years of IBEX observations and the effect of radiation pressure on that.
- Publication:
-
Solar Heliospheric and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE 2018)
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018shin.confE.267R