4.6 Article

Solar Cycle of Imaging the Global Heliosphere: Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) Observations from 2009-2019

Journal

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT SERIES
Volume 248, Issue 2, Pages -

Publisher

IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/ab8dc2

Keywords

Heliosphere; Solar wind; Pickup ions; Interstellar medium; Heliosheath; Solar cycle; Solar activity; Interstellar magnetic fields

Funding

  1. IBEX mission as part of the NASA Explorer Program [80NSSC20K0719]
  2. NASA [80NSSC17K0597]
  3. Polish National Science Center [2015-19B-ST9-01328, 2018-31-D-ST9-02852]
  4. Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) Bekker Program Fellowship [PPN/BEK/2018/1/00049]
  5. PSTEP program

Ask authors/readers for more resources

NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission has operated in space for a full solar activity cycle (Solar Cycle 24), and IBEX observations have exposed the global three-dimensional structure of the heliosphere and its interaction with the very local interstellar medium for the first time. Here, we extend the prior IBEX observations of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) by adding a comprehensive analysis of four additional years (2016 through 2019). We document several improvements and rerelease the entire 11 yr, IBEX-Hi data set. The new observations track the continuing expansion of the outer heliosphere's response to the large solar wind pressure increase in late 2014. We find that the intensification of ENAs from the heliosheath continued to expand progressively over time to directions farther from the initial, closest direction to the heliospheric boundaries, similar to 20 degrees south of the upwind direction. This expansion extended beyond the south pole in 2018 and the north pole in 2019, demonstrating that the termination shock and heliopause are closer in the south. The heliotail has not yet responded, indicating that the boundaries are significantly farther away in the downwind direction. Finally, the slow solar wind (similar to 1 keV) ENAs just started to intensify from the closest regions of the IBEX Ribbon. This is about two and a half years after the initial response from heliosheath ENAs and about four and a half years after the increase in solar wind output, both clearly implicating a secondary ENA source in the draped interstellar magnetic field, just beyond the heliopause.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available