Heliospheric Termination Shock Mediation by Anomalous Cosmic Rays: Insights from Recent Voyager Data

The two Voyager spacecraft provide valuable information about the ener-getic particle population near the termination shock (TS), such as the anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) spectra, the intensity gradients, and the radial diffusion coeffi-cients obtained from anisotropy measurements. While the spectra and gradients have been modeled successfully using the test-particle approach, the shock mod-ification by the ACR pressure gradient has not yet been addressed in the full context of the available data. Here we present the results of a self-consistent ax-isymmetric model of the solar wind modified by both charge exchange and ACR pressure gradients. Our results indicate that during solar minima anomalous cos-mic rays with energies above 100 keV are not likely to have a significant impact on the properties of the termination shock. 1