Composition of anomalous cosmic rays and implications for the heliosphere

We use energy spectra of anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs) measured with the Cosmic Ray instrument on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft during the period 1994/157-313 to determine several parameters of interest to heliospheric studies. We estimate that the strength of the solar wind termination shock is 2.42 (–0.08, +0.04). We determine the composition of ACRs by estimating their differential energy spectra at the shock and find the following abundance ratios: H/He = 5.6 (–0.5, ⁺0.6), C/He = 0.00048 ± 0.00011, N/He = 0.011 ± 0.001, O/He = 0.075 ± 0.006, and Ne/He = 0.0050 ± 0.0004. We correlate our observations with those of pickup ions to deduce that the long-term ionization rate of neutral nitrogen at 1 AU is 8.3 × 10^–7 s^–1 and that the charge-exchange cross section for neutral N and solar wind protons is 1.0 × 10^–15 cm² at 1.1 keV. We estimate that the neutral C/He ratio in the outer heliosphere is 1.8(–0.7, +0.9) × 10^–5. We also find that heavy ions are preferentially injected into the acceleration process at the termination shock.