Alfven shock trains

Details Alfven shock trains Alfven shock trains

Jun 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991phflb...3.1407m&link_type=abstract

Physics of Fluids B (ISSN 0899-8221), vol. 3, June 1991, p. 1407-1419.

Physics

9

Cyclotron Radiation, Magnetohydrodynamic Waves, Nonlinear Evolution Equations, Shock Wave Interaction, Circular Polarization, Polarization (Waves), Scale Height, Wave Equations

Scientific paper

The Cohen-Kulsrud-Burgers equation (CKB) is used to consider the nonlinear evolution of resistive, quasi-parallel Alfven waves subject to a long-wavelength, plane-polarized, monochromatic instability. The instability saturates by nonlinear steepening, which proceeds until the periodic waveform develops an interior scale length comparable to the dissipation length; a fast or an intermediate shock then forms. The result is a periodic train of Alfven shocks of one or the other type. For propagation strictly parallel to the magnetic field, there will be two shocks per instability wavelength. Numerical integration of the time-dependent CKB equation shows that an initial, small-amplitude growing wave asymptotes to a stable, periodic stationary wave whose analytic solution specifies how the type of shock embedded in the shock train, and the amplitude and speed of the shock train, depend on the strength and phase of the instability. Waveforms observed upstream of the earth's bowshock and cometary shocks resemble those calculated here.

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