Wavelength and decay scale of the density overshoot at collisionless shocks

Details Wavelength and decay scale of the density overshoot at collisionless shocks Wavelength and decay scale of the density overshoot at collisionless shocks

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003agufmsh11b..03s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2003, abstract #SH11B-03

Physics

2139 Interplanetary Shocks, 2154 Planetary Bow Shocks, 7851 Shock Waves

Scientific paper

Using spacecraft potential data from the Cluster spacecraft, we study the overshoot/undershoot density structure at 71 crossings of the quasi-perpendicular bow shock. The envelope of the absolute value of the density, in most cases, decays exponentially. We have fitted these envelopes to a decaying exponential function, |n| exp{(-B x)}, from which we are able to calculate the decay length as 1/B. For those shocks without sufficient data points (3 or more) necessary to do an exponential fit, we defined the decay length to be the length it takes for the density to fall to 1/e of the y-intercept on our plots, where the x = 0 value is arbitrary. At all 71 shocks we also estimate the overshoot/undershoot wavelength using the zero-crossings of the density profile. Comparing the average wavelength to the ion gyro radius vsh}/Ω {ci, we find that there is a good correlation between the two: λ ≈ 2.64 vsh}/Ω {ci. We also find the wavelength to be λ ≈ 2.81 c/ω pi ion inertial lengths, although this correlation is not as strong. We attempt to parameterize the scales with solar wind Mach number and plasma β .

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