Oblique Electromagnetic Instabilities Driven by Pickup Ion Ring-beam Distributions in the Outer Heliosheath. II. Hybrid Simulations

Abstract

Abstract Hybrid simulations are carried out to study the instabilities driven by the outer heliosheath pickup ions of ring-beam velocity distributions. Following the linear instability analysis in the companion paper, the electromagnetic instabilities at various propagation directions (0° ≤ θ ≤ 180°) are studied for pickup ion ring-beam distributions of different pickup angles (0° ≤ α ≤ 90°). Previous studies of the ring-beam pickup ion distributions have been limited to the parallel- and antiparallel-propagating modes (θ = 0° and 180°). In this paper, several one-dimensional hybrid simulations are performed to investigate the most unstable modes of different propagation angles predicted by the linear instability analysis. Moreover, two-dimensional hybrid simulations are conducted to examine the simultaneous excitation of the parallel, antiparallel, and oblique unstable modes and their role in the scattering of the outer heliosheath pickup ions. Our recent one-dimensional hybrid and particle-in-cell simulations with simulation domains along the background magnetic field demonstrated that at small pickup angles, the outer heliosheath pickup ions experience an incomplete scattering limited to the hemisphere of positive parallel velocities with respect to the background magnetic field. In contrast, the present two-dimensional hybrid simulation results show that when both parallel/antiparallel and oblique unstable modes are acting together, the pickup ions can be scattered into the hemisphere of negative parallel velocities and approach a near-isotropic velocity distribution. This is in conflict with the spatial retention scenario of the energetic neutral atom ribbon observed by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, which requires pickup ions at small pickup angles to stream away from the ribbon directions.