The heliosheath as a special case of stellarsheaths and the hydrogen wall as a signature of the heliosheath

This paper is an introduction to the topic of stellarsheaths that are formed due to the interaction of stellar winds and interstellar gas flow. Heliosheath formation and possible methods of its detection are discussed in detail. This invited talk was presented at the 2000 Antalya Turkey Conference on the problems of magnetosheaths in the solar system to acquaint participants with the formation of other “sheaths”. This paper is not a full review nor does it present new scientific results. We hope that it will provoke reader interest due to the experimental detection (Astrophys. J. 463 (1996) 254) of the “hydrogen wall”, predicted theoretically by Baranov et al. (1991) and also due to the possibility of a heliosheath image in the energetic H-atom fluxes with 1AU (COSPAR Colloquium on: The Outer Heliosphere: The Next Frontiers, Potsdam, Germany, 24–28 July 2000, p.16 (Abstracts)). It is interesting to note here that the hydrogen wall is formed in the vicinity of the heliopause, separating the solar wind and the ionized component of the local interstellar medium, and, therefore, is a signature of the heliosheath boundary.