A hemispherical model of anisotropic interstellar pickup ions

Abstract

We present an analytical model for the distribution function of interstellar pickup ions in a radially directed heliospheric magnetic field which naturally results in anisotropic particle distributions. The model includes the effects of convection and spatial transport in the solar wind, adiabatic deceleration in the radial flow, adiabatic focusing in the radial field, and pitch angle scattering toward isotropy in the frame of the solar wind. The pitch angle scattering is approximated by the hemispherical assumption: we take the scattering to be very efficient within each pitch angle range μ ≷ 0 (where μ is the cosine of the pitch angle) but inhibited between the hemispheres separated by μ = 0. The analytical solution is obtained for the case where the scattering rate across μ = 0 scales as the particle speed divided by the radial position of the fluid parcel. The model distribution functions can be used to interpret recent observations of anisotropic pickup ions.