Predicting the Heliosphere

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In this project, the Principal Investigator (PI) will investigate the suprathermal particle distributions for solar wind ions. The PI plans to use existing models developed under prior NSF support to predict the production of energetic neutral atoms in the solar wind and to compare this output with recent observations from the IBEX and Cassini spacecraft. He also plans to study whether his presumed 'compressive turbulence' mechanism for stochastic acceleration of suprathermal solar wind ions might also be able to accelerate galactic cosmic rays in the interstellar medium, or to create seed populations of energetic particles in the solar corona. As a means to promote the development of a predictive model for the solar wind, the proposer intends to investigate the dynamics of the region surrounding the heliospheric current sheet, to study the relationship between the mass flux of the solar wind and the strength of the Sun's open magnetic field, and to attempt a reconciliation of various theories for embedding open magnetic flux in primarily closed-field magnetic regions. The PI expects this research to be relevant to general astrophysical plasmas as well as to solar physics. He plans to incorporate the new concepts developed in this project into the graduate education program at the University of Michigan, in order to encourage and train the next generation of scientists in solar and heliospheric physics.