SH42A-07
Transients in the outer heliosphere and interstellar medium.
Thursday, 17 December 2015: 11:50
2011 (Moscone West)
John D Richardson, MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States, Ying Liu, NSSC National Space Science Center, CAS, Beijing, China and The Voyager Team
Abstract:
Transients such as ICMEs and CIRs have sources at the Sun and propagate and evolve through the heliosphere and beyond. ICMEs interact to form large structures called merged interction regions (MIRs) which dominate plasma dynamics in the outer heliosphere near and after solar maximum. The structures produce factor of 10 changes in the solar wind dynmic pressure which can propagate through the heliosheath and drive shocks in the local interstellar medium. We discuss the evolution of these MIRs in the outer heliosphere and heliosheath and show the effects they have in the LISM. These effects include the production of weak shocks which affect the pitch angle distributions of galactic cosmic rays and generate plasma wave emissions. CIRs can also merge and form large structures which have similar effects in the LISM and we show the evolution of these features.
