Observations of an interplanetary switch-on shock driven by a magnetic cloud

Details Observations of an interplanetary switch-on shock driven by a magnetic cloud Observations of an interplanetary switch-on shock driven by a magnetic cloud

Apr 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009georl..3607106f&link_type=abstract

Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 36, Issue 7, CiteID L07106

Physics

Interplanetary Physics: Interplanetary Shocks, Interplanetary Physics: Interstellar Gas, Interplanetary Physics: Interplanetary Magnetic Fields, Interplanetary Physics: Ejecta, Driver Gases, And Magnetic Clouds, Interplanetary Physics: Coronal Mass Ejections (7513)

Scientific paper

A possible interplanetary switch-on shock event prior to a trailing magnetic cloud was observed on August 1, 2002 at 1 AU. We fit the data with the Rankine-Hugoniot (R-H) relations based on both oblique and switch-on shock models. It is found that both models are consistent with the observed data, and the best fit solutions of the two models are close to one another. For the oblique shock model, the best fit upstream shock normal angle, $\theta$ BN1 (= cos-1(Bt1/B1)), is as small as 5.55°. The shock has the following characteristics: (1) plasma density, plasma temperature, and the magnetic field strength all increase across the shock, (2) protons are thermalized very efficiently across the shock, but it is not the case for electrons, (3) the fast-mode Mach number is greater than unity in the preshock region and less than unity in the postshock region, and (4) from the oblique shock model we find that the normal Alfvén Mach number is very close to unity in the postshock region, while from the switch-on shock model we obtain a solution of unity normal Alfvén Mach number. Our results clearly demonstrate the MHD character of a fast shock propagating along the ambient magnetic field.

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