Coupling of newborn ions to the solar wind by electromagnetic instabilities and their interaction with the bow shock

Abstract

The process by which the solar wind assimilates newly ionized atoms is important for understanding the presence of planetary or interstellar helium in the solar wind, the dynamics of the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers (AMPTE) lithium releases in front of the earth's bow shock, and the formation of cometary tails. In this paper we examine how newborn ions can be coupled to the solar wind in the direction parallel to the magnetic field by means of electromagnetic instabilities driven by the distribution of newborn ions. The linear properties of three instabilities are analyzed and compared with numerical solutions of the linear dispersion equation, while their nonlinear behavior is followed by means of computer simulation to obtain the characteristic time for the pickup process. With a primary emphasis on the AMPTE lithium releases, various degrees of realism are introduced into the calculations to model the upstream conditions and the intersection of the lithium with the bow shock. It is shown that a time‐dependent shock model is needed to correctly reproduce the amount of lithium which is transmitted through the shock and that the resulting lithium ion distribution is still likely to be subject to the same type of instabilities in the magnetosheath. Application of these results to comets, in particular the artificial comet expected to be generated by the AMPTE barium release in the magnetosheath, is also briefly discussed.