Dynamics of He⁺⁺ Ions at Interplanetary and Earth’s Bow Shocks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a work on determining some characteristics related to alpha particles across a set of interplneatry shock events as well as that of Earth's bow shocks. The authors performed the analysis using the obervations from several satellites and found a meaningful relation between alpha particle density ratio relative to proton density and the magnetic field-to-shock normal angle. Overall I find this work interesting, but the manuscript may be improved after addressing the following points. 

1. It will be helpful if some comments are added about (if any) previous works on the same topic as here, perhaps in the introduction. Otherwise it is good to emphasize that this is the first work. 

2.  Giving satellites' locations for the example events in all figures (when appropriate) will be helpful to understand the data. 

3. Line 150-152: Is there any possibility that (if so, what is the extent to which) possibly inhomogeneous density distributions at different locations of two satellites contibute to this discrepancy in proton density between two satellites in Figure 2?  Also, does the different sensitivities between two satellites' sensors cause the proton density discrepancy in a consistent way? Or does it ever vary depending on specific observations? 

4. I see that the difference in proton density between two satellites in Figure 5 is much less significant than in the case of the event in Figure 2... why is the discrepancy more significant in one event while it is much less serious in another event?

Author Response

The  authors  are  grateful  to  Referee  for  all comments  to  the manuscript. Our reply is in pdf-file, please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The  authors  are  grateful  to  Referee  for  all comments  to  the manuscript. Our reply is marked with initials OS.  Our reply is in pdf-file, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf