HR: 0830h
AN: SH11C-1125    [PDF]
TI: Heliospheric Response to Different Interstellar Hydrogen Parameters
AU: * Mueller, H R
EM: hans.mueller@dartmouth.edu
AF: Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder, Hanover, NH 03755 United States
AU: * Mueller, H R
EM: hans.mueller@dartmouth.edu
AF: IGPP - Riverside, University of California 1432 Geology, Riverside, CA 92521 United States
AU: Frisch, P C
EM: frisch@oddjob.uchicago.edu
AF: Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 United States
AU: Zank, G P
EM: zank@ucrac1.ucr.edu
AF: IGPP - Riverside, University of California 1432 Geology, Riverside, CA 92521 United States
AB: A range of interstellar cloud types are found within $\sim$ 400 pc of the Sun, including the hot low density plasma interior to the Local Bubble (which the Sun exited some 10-100 kyr ago), diffuse warm quiescent gas, neutral clouds, and shocked and cooled interstellar gas. At present, the heliosphere is embedded in the local interstellar cloud (LIC) which is warm ($\sim$ 7000 K) and moderately dense ($\sim$ 0.2/cc), and travels through it at a Sun-LIC relative velocity of 26 km/s. This suggests that during its lifetime, the heliosphere has been exposed to a large variety of different interstellar environments. By means of numerical modeling, the interaction of the solar wind with a variety of partially ionized interstellar media is investigated. The basic solar wind parameters are assumed as they are today but a range of ISM densities, relative velocities, and temperatures is considered. In response to different interstellar boundary conditions, the heliospheric structure changes, as does the filtration of neutrals in the inner heliosphere, with consequences for pickup ion spectra and cosmic rays in the inner heliosphere. The neutral hydrogen filtration results are given for all models, and filtration results for three models that include the heavy elements He, C, N, O, Ne, and Ar, are added as an application.
DE: 2144 Interstellar gas
DE: 2151 Neutral particles
DE: 7823 Ionization processes
DE: 7837 Neutral particles
DE: 7843 Numerical simulation studies
SC: SPA - Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting