How non-stationary are moderately supercritical shocks?

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ion motion in a collisionless shock front is affected by macroscopic large-scale weakly varying and microscopic small-scale fast varying magnetic and electric fields. With the increase of the Mach number the role of the microscopic field is expected to become progressively more important. Using a combination of hybrid simulations and test particle analysis, we show that in moderately supercritical shocks macroscopic fields play the main role in ion motion across the shock. Pressure balance across the shock is only weakly broken and non-stationarity is related to the deviations from the total pressure from the constant value.

Original languageEnglish
Article number905850505
JournalJournal of Plasma Physics
Volume85
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2019

Keywords

  • Space plasma physics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Condensed Matter Physics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'How non-stationary are moderately supercritical shocks?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this