TY - JOUR
T1 - The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX)
T2 - Tracing the interaction between the heliosphere and surrounding interstellar material with energetic neutral atoms
AU - Frisch, Priscilla C.
AU - McComas, David J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank the IBEX team members. This work was funded through the IBEX mission, as a part of NASA’s Explorer Program.
PY - 2013/6
Y1 - 2013/6
N2 - The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission is exploring the frontiers of the heliosphere where energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) are formed from charge exchange between interstellar neutral hydrogen atoms and solar wind ions and pickup ions. The geography of this frontier is dominated by an unexpected nearly complete arc of ENA emission, now known as the IBEX 'Ribbon'. While there is no consensus agreement on the Ribbon formation mechanism, it seems certain this feature is seen for sightlines that are perpendicular to the interstellar magnetic field as it drapes over the heliosphere. At the lowest energies, IBEX also measures the flow of interstellar H, He, and O atoms through the inner heliosphere. The asymmetric oxygen profile suggests that a secondary flow of oxygen is present, such as would be expected if some fraction of oxygen is lost through charge exchange in the heliosheath regions. The detailed spectra characterized by the ENAs provide time-tagged samples of the energy distributions of the underlying ion distributions, and provide a wealth of information about the outer heliosphere regions, and beyond.
AB - The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission is exploring the frontiers of the heliosphere where energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) are formed from charge exchange between interstellar neutral hydrogen atoms and solar wind ions and pickup ions. The geography of this frontier is dominated by an unexpected nearly complete arc of ENA emission, now known as the IBEX 'Ribbon'. While there is no consensus agreement on the Ribbon formation mechanism, it seems certain this feature is seen for sightlines that are perpendicular to the interstellar magnetic field as it drapes over the heliosphere. At the lowest energies, IBEX also measures the flow of interstellar H, He, and O atoms through the inner heliosphere. The asymmetric oxygen profile suggests that a secondary flow of oxygen is present, such as would be expected if some fraction of oxygen is lost through charge exchange in the heliosheath regions. The detailed spectra characterized by the ENAs provide time-tagged samples of the energy distributions of the underlying ion distributions, and provide a wealth of information about the outer heliosphere regions, and beyond.
KW - Energetic neutral atoms
KW - Heliosphere
KW - ISM: atoms
KW - ISM: kinematics and dynamics
KW - ISM: magnetic fields
KW - Solar wind
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U2 - 10.1007/s11214-010-9725-0
DO - 10.1007/s11214-010-9725-0
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84879198478
SN - 0038-6308
VL - 176
SP - 101
EP - 113
JO - Space Science Reviews
JF - Space Science Reviews
IS - 1-4
ER -