Understanding the IBEX ribbon using the kinetic model of pickup proton transport in a scatter-free limit

Advances in Space Research. 2025. Vol. 76. No. 3. P. 1917–1938.

Baliukin I., Izmodenov V.

One of the most remarkable discoveries by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) is the ribbon – a narrow band of enhanced energetic neutral atom (ENA) fluxes observed in the sky. The prevailing explanation attributes the IBEX ribbon to the secondary ENA mechanism. In this process, “primary” hydrogen ENAs, produced via charge exchange between solar wind protons and interstellar hydrogen atoms within the heliosphere, travel beyond the heliopause and undergo further charge exchange with protons of the local interstellar medium (LISM), generating pickup protons. Some of these pickup protons subsequently experience charge exchange with interstellar hydrogen atoms, forming “secondary” ENAs, some of which travel back toward the Sun and are detected by the IBEX.

This paper presents a kinetic model developed to simulate secondary ENA fluxes. Ribbon simulations are performed using global distributions of plasma and hydrogen atoms in the heliosphere derived from a kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic model of the solar wind interaction with the LISM. The model accounts for all relevant primary ENA populations, including neutralized thermal solar wind protons, neutralized pickup protons, and ENAs originating in the inner heliosheath. The transport of pickup protons beyond the heliopause is described by the focused transport equation for a gyrotropic velocity distribution in the scatter-free limit, assuming no pitch-angle scattering or energy diffusion.

Our simulations qualitatively reproduce IBEX-Hi (0.5–6 keV) ribbon observations and exhibit good quantitative agreement at low heliolatitudes. However, the model underestimates fluxes at high heliolatitudes, likely due to the omission of non-stationary solar wind behavior in the stationary framework used in this work. The study highlights the importance of ENAs from the inner heliosheath, a population considered for the ribbon production in the frame of the kinetic model of pickup proton transport in the heliosphere for the first time, for accurately reproducing ribbon fluxes observed by IBEX-Hi at the highest energy steps.

Keywords: magnetic fields, solar wind, heliosphere, Pickup protons, Atoms