Low-frequency Waves Due to Newborn Interstellar Pickup Ions Observed from 43 to 47 au by the Voyager 1 Spacecraft

Abstract

Interstellar neutral atoms enter the heliosphere at a relatively slow speed corresponding to the motion of the Sun through the local interstellar medium, which is approximately 25 km s−1. Neutral hydrogen atoms enter from the approximate location of the Voyager spacecraft and are eventually ionized primarily by collision with thermal solar wind ions. An earlier analysis by Hollick et al. examined low-frequency magnetic waves observed by the Voyager spacecraft from launch through 1990 that are thought to arise from the scattering of newborn interstellar pickup H+ and He+. We report an analysis of Voyager 1 observations in 1991, which is the last year of high-resolution magnetic field data that are publicly available, and find 70 examples of low-frequency waves with the characteristics that suggest excitation by pickup H+ and 10 examples of waves consistent with excitation by pickup He+. We find a particularly dense cluster of observations at the tail end of what is thought to be a Merged Interaction Region (MIR) that was previously studied by Burlaga & Ness using Voyager 2 observations. This is not unexpected if the MIR is followed by a large rarefaction region, as they tend to be regions of reduced turbulence levels that permit the growth of the waves over the long time periods that are generally required of this instability.