Bonn 2010 – scientific programme
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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik
EP 3: Poster
EP 3.18: Poster
Monday, March 15, 2010, 17:45–19:00, AKM Foyer
Inner-Source Pickup Ions as sensitive Tracers of the Inner-Heliospheric Microstate — •Robert F. Wimmer-Schweingruber1, Jan Köhler1, and Peter Bochsler2 — 1Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Christian-Albrechts-Universiät zu Kiel, 24098 Kiel — 2University of New Hampsire, Space Science Center & Department of Physics, Morse Hall, 8 College Road, Durham, NH 03824, USA
Inner-source pickup ions have been investigated by several workers who all assumed an initial velocity distribution function which is dominated by high velocities in the solar wind velocity frame. This is supposed to be due to the Lorentz force which acts on the freshly ionized particles. Because the location where inner-source pickup ions are ionized lies close to the Sun (probably between 5 and 25 r⊙) and the magnetic field is near radial there, the Lorentz force acting on freshly created ions is small.
Here we show that particles desorbed from interplanetary dust particles only experience a very small mirror force in the inner heliosphere. Such pickup ions are accelerated by waves and thus serve as sensitive tracers to the level of wave-particle interactions in the inner heliosphere. The average charge state of heavy pip ions yields information about the source location.