Interstellar Neutral Gas Species And Their Pickup Ions Inside The Heliospheric Termination Shock. Ionization Rates For H, O, Ne, And He

TL;DR

This paper reviews ionization processes affecting interstellar neutral gases inside the heliosphere, focusing on hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and helium, and compares ionization rates across species, regions, and solar activity levels.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive, homogeneous analysis of ionization rates for key interstellar gases inside the termination shock from 1985 to 2018, highlighting dominant processes and temporal variations.

Findings

Hydrogen and oxygen have the highest ionization rates at 1 au in the ecliptic.

Photoionization dominates for helium and neon, charge exchange for hydrogen.

Ionization rates for He and Ne vary with solar activity, H and O follow solar wind cycles.

Abstract

Solar ionizing factors are responsible for modulation of interstellar neutral gas and its derivative populations inside the heliosphere. We provide an overview of the current state of knowledge about them for heliospheric particles inside the termination shock. We discuss charge exchange with solar wind particles, photoionization, and electron impact ionization for hydrogen, oxygen, neon, and helium from 1985 to 2018 both in the ecliptic plane and in the polar regions. We discuss ionization rates as a function of time, distance to the Sun, and latitude. We compare the total ionization rates among the species within a consistent and homogeneous system of calculation of the ionization rates. The highest total ionization rates at 1 au in the ecliptic plane are for hydrogen and oxygen, and the lowest are for helium. In the polar regions, the strongest ionization losses are for oxygen, regardless of the solar activity. Photoionization is the dominant ionization reaction for helium and neon, and a reaction of high significance for oxygen. Charge exchange with solar wind particles is the dominant ionization reaction for hydrogen and the second important ionization reaction for oxygen. Electron impact ionization is an important ionization reaction for Ne and He, with the contribution to the total ionization rates stronger within 1 au and smaller outside. The total ionization rates for He and Ne vary in time with the solar activity, whereas the total ionization rates for H and O follow the cyclic solar wind variations out of the ecliptic plane and aperiodic variations in the ecliptic plane.