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The abundance of atomic 1H, 4He and 3He in the local interstellar cloud from pickup ion observations with SWICS on Ulysses

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Abstract

Pickup ions measured deep inside the heliosphere open a new way to determine the absolute atomic density of a number of elements and isotopes in the local interstellar cloud (LIC). We derive the atomic abundance of hydrogen and the two isotopes of helium from the velocity and spatial distributions of interstellar pickup protons and ionized helium measured with the Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) on the Ulysses spacecraft between ∼2 and ∼5 AU. The atomic hydrogen density near the termination shock derived from interstellar pickup ion measurements is 0.115±0.025 cm−3 and the atomic H/He ratio from these observations is found to be 7.7 ± 1.3 in the outer heliosphere. Comparing this value with the standard universal H/He ratio of ∼10 we conclude that filtration of hydrogen is small and that the ionization fraction of hydrogen in the LIC is low.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and IPST, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD, USA

    George Gloeckler

  2. Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, University of Michigan, 48109, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    George Gloeckler

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Gloeckler, G. The abundance of atomic 1H, 4He and 3He in the local interstellar cloud from pickup ion observations with SWICS on Ulysses. Space Sci Rev 78, 335–346 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00170820

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