Termination Shock Surfing

The recent Voyager 2 (V2) observations of the termination shock (TS) indicate that it is a plasma shock like no other in the heliosphere with dynamics and structure heavily influenced by the presence of an energized population of pickup ions (PUIs). The 'unexpected' finding of a cold plasma in the heliosheath with very little heating of the solar wind suggests that the energy dissipated by the shock could be dominated by the acceleration of PUIs at the TS. We examine the 'shock surfing' mechanism at the test particle level, where multiply reflected ions (MRIs) gain energy from the motional electric field as a consequence of reflection from the cross-shock potential, for a specific model of the TS3 (the third TS crossing measured by V2). The energization of PUT shell distributions at a stationary, perpendicular model of the TS3 indicate that shock surfing can provide substantial PUI acceleration and a dissipation mechanism at the TS. For a strong enough cross-shock potential and sufficiently narrow shock ramp MRI acceleration can account for the 'missing' energy of the downstream solar wind plasma.