Determination of the heliospheric shock and of the supersonic solar wind geometry by means of the interstellar wind parameters

Details Determination of the heliospheric shock and of the supersonic solar wind geometry by means of the interstellar wind parameters Determination of the heliospheric shock and of the supersonic solar wind geometry by means of the interstellar wind parameters

Sep 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993a%26a...277..249f&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 277, p. 249 (1993)

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

16

Solar Wind - Interstellar Medium - Plasma - Solar Neighbourhood

Scientific paper

The solar system is known to be moving relative to the ambient interstellar medium, and thus the solar wind plasma flow eventually has to merge into an asymptotic outflow geometry which is appropriately adapted to this situation. To keep an as large degree of freedom as possible we start out from a very general description of the flow configuration originating from the interaction of a subsonic interstellar plasma with the post-shock subsonic solar wind plasma, based on the theory of generalized potential flows. For each specific solution worked out from this theoretical context an associated force can be derived which should be exerted on the sun, i.e. on the source of a wind system that eventually fits into the outer predicted asymptotic flow geometry. Hereby, of course, this net reaction force on the solar body has to be mediated through the supersonic solar wind regime, communicating the associated, asymmetric, outer boundary conditions which the distant solar wind has to meet.
We are going to show in this paper that for each solution of an asymptotic potential flow, also one, unambiguously determined, associated solution for the location and the geometry of an adapted heliospheric termination shock can be derived by looking for a specific critical isobaric surface in the outer flow. Application of the Rankine-Hugoniot relations to the post-shock plasma at this specific surface then permits to find associated pre-shock plasma conditions which for an adapted inner supersonic solar wind have to be realized at the inner side of this boundary surface, if the outer wind pattern is to be kept stabilized in its calculated form. From this surface inwards we start a three-dimensional integration of differential equations describing the inner supersonic solar wind, however, starting from outer, instead from inner boundary conditions, as done otherwise in the literature. By this procedure we can finally predict upwind-downwind asymmetric solar wind properties at some reference distance from the sun which are predictable as clearcut hints for the outer local interstellar medium (LISM) conditions, already present in the inner heliosphere.

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