Discovering the 3D Structure and Dynamics of the Sun-Interstellar Medium System on a Global Scale Los Alamos LDRD Report

Technical Report · Tue Sep 14 04:00:00 EDT 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1821326· OSTI ID:1821326

Reisenfeld, Daniel Brett ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

We discover the 3D plasma structure of the Sun-interstellar medium interaction region, called the heliosheath. This is enabled by (1) the completion of a full solar cycle of observations of hydrogen energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) emanating from this region and detected by the Los Alamos-led IBEX-Hi ENA imager on NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, and (2) the development of tools to fully exploit all data from the IBEX-Hi imager, leading to a significant increase in the effective instrument sensitivity. This effort prepares us for optimizing the design and data exploitation of the IMAP-Hi imager, the Los Alamos-led next generation imager that will fly on the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, currently under production. This project realized its goals as evidenced by two main outcomes: (1) The publication of the first-ever empirical 3D map of the interstellar boundary, and (2) the development and release of a new validated ENA data set that has tripled the amount of data available for scientific analysis of the outer heliosphere.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: LDRD
• DOE Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001
• OSTI ID: 1821326
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-21-29072
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Heliospheric and Magnetospheric Physics