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Broadening of the Interplanetary Helium Cone Structure Due to Elastic Collisions of LISM Helium Atoms with Solar Wind Ions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Hans J. Fahr
Affiliation:
Institut für Astrophysik der Universität Bonn
Hans U. Nass
Affiliation:
Institut für Astrophysik der Universität Bonn
Daniel Rucinski
Affiliation:
Space Research Center of Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Abstract

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Neutral interstellar particles penetrating into the heliosphere, besides being subject there to specific loss processes, suffer elastic collisions with KeV-solar wind ions. The momentum transfer to the neutrals connected with these collisions leads to a loss of angular momentum with respect to the sun and to a fractional compensation of the effective solar gravity. The dynamical particle trajectories hence are changed into non-Keplerians leading to density and temperature distributions differing from those calculated in the past. This is found from a solution of the Boltzmann equation that linearizes the effect of this additional force. It is shown here that the HeI-584A resonance glow of the heliospheric helium cone lead to substantially lower interstellar helium temperatures if re-interpreted on the basis of this revised theory. These temperatures now seem to be in accordance with the derived temperatures for interstellar hydrogen.

Type
Helium and Hydrogen Backscattering Results and the Very Local Interstellar Medium
Copyright
Copyright © NASA 1984

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