Paper detail

Why are the magnetic field directions measured by Voyager 1 on both sides of the heliopause so similar?

The solar wind carves in the interstellar plasma a cavity bounded by a surface, called the heliopause (HP), that separates the plasma and magnetic field of solar origin from the interstellar ones. It is now generally accepted that in August 2012 Voyager 1 (V1) crossed that boundary. Unexpectedly, the magnetic fields on both its sides, although theoretically independent of each other, were found to be similar in direction. This delayed the identification of the boundary as the heliopause and led to many alternative explanations. Here we show that the Voyager 1 observations can be readily explained and, after the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) discovery of the ribbon, could even have been predicted. Our explanation relies on the fact that the Voyager 1 and the undisturbed interstellar field directions (which we assume to be given by the IBEX ribbon center (RC)) share the same heliolatitude (~34.5 degrees) and are not far separated in longitude (difference ~27 degrees). Our result confirms that Voyager 1 has indeed crossed the heliopause and offers the first independent confirmation that the IBEX ribbon center is in fact the direction of the undisturbed interstellar magnetic field. For Voyager 2 we predict that the difference between the inner and the outer magnetic field directions at the heliopause will be significantly larger than the one observed by Voyager 1 (~30 degrees, instead of ~20 degrees), and that the outer field direction will be close to the RC.