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IBEX, SWCX and a Consistent Model for the Local ISM

The Local Interstellar Medium (LISM) makes its presence felt in the heliosphere in a number of ways including inflowing neutral atoms and dust and shaping of the heliosphere via its ram pressure and magnetic field. Modelers of the heliosphere need to know the ISM density and magnetic field as boundary conditions while ISM modelers would like to use the data and models of the heliosphere to constrain the nature of the LISM. An important data set on the LISM is the diffuse soft X-ray background (SXRB), which is thought to originate in hot gas that surrounds the local interstellar cloud (LIC) in which the heliosphere resides. However, in the past decade or so it has become clear that there is a significant X-ray foreground due to emission within the heliosphere generated when solar wind ions charge exchange with inflowing neutrals. The existence of this SWCX emission complicates the interpretation of the SXRB. We discuss how data from IBEX and models for the Ribbon in particular provide the possibility of tying together heliosphere models with models for the LISM, providing a consistent picture for the pressure in the LISM, the ionization in the LIC and the size and shape of the heliosphere.