ABSTRACT
A detailed overview of the knowledge gaps in our understanding of the heliospheric interaction with the largely unexplored Very Local Interstellar Medium (VLISM) are provided along with predictions of with the scientific discoveries that await. The new measurements required to make progress in this expanding frontier of space physics are discussed and include in-situ plasma and pick-up ion measurements throughout the heliosheath, direct sampling of the VLISM properties such as elemental and isotopic composition, densities, flows, and temperatures of neutral gas, dust and plasma, and remote energetic neutral atom (ENA) and Lyman-alpha (LYA) imaging from vantage points that can uniquely discern the heliospheric shape and bring new information on the interaction with interstellar hydrogen. The implementation of a pragmatic Interstellar Probe mission with a nominal design life to reach 375 Astronomical Units (au) with likely operation out to 550 au are reported as a result of a 4-year NASA funded mission study.
ABSTRACT
Recent in situ observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) found signatures of reconnection exhausts in their interior or trailing edge. Whereas reconnection on the leading edge of an ICME would indicate an interaction with the coronal or interplanetary environment, this result suggests that the internal magnetic field reconnects with itself. In light of this data, we consider the stability properties of flux ropes first developed in the context of astrophysics, then further elaborated upon in the context of reversed field pinches (RFPs). It was shown that the lowest energy state of a flux rope corresponds to ∇ × B = λB with λ a constant, the so-called Taylor state. Variations from this state will result in the magnetic field trying to reorient itself into the Taylor state solution, subject to the constraints that the toroidal flux and magnetic helicity are invariant. In reversed field pinches, this relaxation is mediated by the reconnection of the magnetic field, resulting in a sawtooth crash. If we likewise treat the ICME as a flux rope, any deviation from the Taylor state will result in reconnection within the interior of the flux tube, in agreement with the observations by Gosling et al. Such a departure from the Taylor state takes place as the flux tube cross section expands in the latitudinal direction, as seen in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of flux tubes propagating through the interplanetary medium. We show analytically that this elongation results in a state which is no longer in the minimum energy Taylor state. We then present magnetohydrodynamic simulations of an elongated flux tube which has evolved away from the Taylor state and show that reconnection at many surfaces produces a complex stochastic magnetic field as the system evolves back to a minimum energy state configuration.
ABSTRACT
Magnetic fields play an important (sometimes dominant) role in the evolution of gas clouds in the Galaxy, but the strength and orientation of the field in the interstellar medium near the heliosphere has been poorly constrained. Previous estimates of the field strength range from 1.8-2.5 microG and the field was thought to be parallel to the Galactic plane or inclined by 38-60 degrees (ref. 2) or 60-90 degrees (ref. 3) to this plane. These estimates relied either on indirect observational inferences or modelling in which the interstellar neutral hydrogen was not taken into account. Here we report measurements of the deflection of the solar wind plasma flows in the heliosheath to determine the magnetic field strength and orientation in the interstellar medium. We find that the field strength in the local interstellar medium is 3.7-5.5 microG. The field is tilted approximately 20-30 degrees from the interstellar medium flow direction (resulting from the peculiar motion of the Sun in the Galaxy) and is at an angle of about 30 degrees from the Galactic plane. We conclude that the interstellar medium field is turbulent or has a distortion in the solar vicinity.
ABSTRACT
The orientation of the local interstellar magnetic field introduces asymmetries in the heliosphere that affect the location of heliospheric radio emissions and the streaming direction of ions from the termination shock of the solar wind. We combined observations of radio emissions and energetic particle streaming with extensive three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic computer simulations of magnetic field draping over the heliopause to show that the plane of the local interstellar field is approximately 60 degrees to 90 degrees from the galactic plane. This finding suggests that the field orientation in the Local Interstellar Cloud differs from that of a larger-scale interstellar magnetic field thought to parallel the galactic plane.
ABSTRACT
An assessment is made of Krook collisional models used to describe the kinetic behavior of collective oscillations, i.e., when Landau damping and collisions must be considered, as is often the case for low-frequency waves. The study focuses on an early energy-conserving model [B. D. Fried, A. N. Kaufman, and D. L. Sachs, Phys. Fluids 9, 292 (1966)] that is shown to be identical to a more modern version used in drift-wave stability studies [G. Rewoldt, W. M. Tang, and R. J. Hastie, Phys. Fluids 29, 2893 (1986)]. The inadequacy of the simpler, and often used, nonconserving model is illustrated. Comparisons are established with recent collisional studies of ion acoustic waves [V. Yu. Bychenkov, J. Myatt, W. Rozmus, and V. T. Tikhonchuk, Phys. Plasmas 1, 2419 (1994)] and electron plasma waves [C. S. Ng, A. Bhattacharjee, and F. Skiff, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1974 (1999)]. A connection is also established with contemporary studies of condensed matter and quantum liquids [K. Morawetz and U. Fuhrmann, Phys. Rev. E 61, 2272 (2000); 62, 4382 (2000)]. A useful empirical fit is found that corrects the Braginskii susceptibility to incorporate the kinetic behavior associated with the Krook kinetic susceptibility.
