Observations of energetic water-group ions at comet giacobini-zinner: Implications for ion acceleration processes

Observations of energetic water-group pick-up ions made by the EPAS instrument during the ICE fly-by of comet P/Giacobini-Zinner are investigated for evidence concerning the processes which accelerate the ions from initial pick-up energies of around 10 keV up to energies of a few hundred kilo-electronvolts. The form of the ion spectrum in the ion rest frame is first investigated and compared with theoretical suggestions that exponential energy distributions might be produced by either first or second order Fermi acceleration in the cometary environment. It is shown that such distributions do not fit the data at all well, but that rather (over the EPAS ion bulk rest frame energy range of ∼30 to <300 keV) the observed distribution functions closely approximate an exponential in ion speed. The higher energy (> 50 keV) data also fit a power law distribution very well, but at lower energies the data tend to show a flattening below the power law form. It is also shown that the observed spectra are much softer than those calculated by Ip and Axford (1986, Planet. Space Sci. 34, 1061) for the G-Z ion pick-up region upstream of the bow shock, indicating that if these distributions are indeed due to second order Fermi acceleration as they propose, then the ion mean free path must be rather larger than used in their calculations (i.e. rather larger than 5 water-group ion gyroradii). Overall, it is concluded that at the present stage of theoretical development it is premature to draw firm conclusions about acceleration mechanisms from studies of the ion spectrum alone. However, from the general spectral analysis it is also possible to investigate the variations of ion intensity and spectral hardness which take place during the comet encounter, and to gain an indication of the degree of isotropy of the ion distribution in the rest frame of the flow. We find that a ∼.5 × 10⁴km-wide region (∼ 35 min along the spacecraft trajectory) of rapid ion intensification and spectral hardening occurs immediately upstream from the turbulent mass-loaded region, suggestive of a first order Fermi process in which ions are successively reflected between the outer layer of the slowed, turbulent region and waves in the faster upstream flow. It is shown that within the turbulent region the ion distribution becomes rapidly isotropized in its own bulk rest frame, indicative of a sudden reduction in ion mean free path. Additional processes (possibly second order Fermi acceleration) must also occur in order to account for the further modest intensifications of the energetic ion fluxes observed within the turbulent mass-loaded region, as well as the presence of ions in the outer pick-up region which have energies well in excess of the local pick-up energy.