The 2010 Transient Events in the Heliosheath - Comparing the Observations of IBEX and the Voyagers

In the latter part of 2010, both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 observed significant decreases of energetic particle intensity at energies 40keV-1MeV. The onset time and decay rate of this feature were very similar at both locations. Moreover, it was observed ~1 month earlier at Voyager 2 (which is not as deep into the heliosheath as Voyager 1), suggesting a large scale propagating temporal change in the heliosheath in the vicinity of the Voyagers (even though they are separated by ~130AU). During and subsequent to the period of this transient disturbance, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) was viewing Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) emission (0.5-5 keV) from the region of the sky near the Voyagers, although the ENAs arrive months later due to the travel time from the heliosheath to 1 AU. In this study, we compare the ENA data taken by IBEX (0.5 to 5 keV) with the time-shifted in situ Voyager energetic ion observations ( >40 keV).