Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jul 1994
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994a%26a...287..219s&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 287, no. 1, p. 219-226
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
8
Astronomical Models, Counterflow, Interstellar Matter, Magnetohydrodynamics, Plasma Dynamics, Stellar Mass Ejection, Stellar Motions, Stellar Winds, Asymptotic Properties, Compressibility, Density Distribution, Laplace Equation, Momentum, Plasma Pressure, Shock Waves, Velocity Distribution
Scientific paper
In general, a stellar wind system is in relative motion with respect to its ambient intersellar medium. Thus the stellar wind plasma eventually has to enter into an asymptotic outflow geometry appropriately adapted to this counterflow situation. We start out from a general description of the flow configuration describing the interaction of a subsonic interstellar plasma with the stellar wind plasma which either is subsonic from the very beginning (stellar breeze solution) or has already undergone an inner-shock transition before its encounter with the outer medium. We assume irrotational flows and allow for a transversal plasma compressibility, i.e. density gradients normal to the flowlines. This enables the determination of the velocity field as solution of the Laplacian differential equation. With the associated specific solutions of the density field, the pressure can consistently be calculated, providing the complete hydrodynamical data field of the counterflow configuration. From this theoretical hydrodynamical context it can then be proven that a finite net momentum loss of the stellar wind source is naturally connected with this form of an adapted wind, as was already shown for the case of incompressible plasmas by Fahr & Scherer (1993). The associated force acting upon the wind-driving star is calculated here and shows that such stars accelerate with respect to the ambient interstellar medium. Hereby, of course, the net reaction force has to be mediated through the stellar wind regime down to its source (i.e. the stellar corona). In case that, close to the star, a supersonic wind prevails, it has to adapt to the associated, asymmetric, outer boundary conditions which the distant stellar wind has to meet. Thus the adapted inner supersonic stellar wind has to be developed in an asymmetric form if the outer wind pattern is to be maintained in its calculated form.
Fahr Hans Jörg
Ratkiewicz Roma
Scherer Klaus
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