Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jun 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aipc..471..831z&link_type=abstract
The solar wind nine conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 471, pp. 831-834 (1999).
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Solar Wind Plasma, Sources Of Solar Wind, Molecular Clouds, H2 Clouds, Dense Clouds, And Dark Clouds
Scientific paper
The interaction of the heliosphere with interstellar clouds has attracted interest since the late 1920's, both with a view to explaining apparent quasi-periodic climate ``catastrophes'' as well as periodic mass extinctions. Until recently, however, models describing the solar wind - local interstellar medium (LISM) interaction self-consistently had not been developed. Here, we describe the results of a two-dimensional (2D) simulation of the interaction between the heliosphere and an interstellar cloud with the same properties as currently, except that the H0 density is increased from the current value of n(H0) ~0.2 cm-3 to 10 cm-3. The mutual interaction of interstellar neutral hydrogen and plasma is included. The high density neutral interstellar cloud leads to a considerable reduction in the size of the heliosphere (approximately 9 - 14 AU to the termination shock in the upstream direction) and is highly dynamical. The interplanetary environment at the orbit of the earth changes markedly, with the density of neutral H increasing to ~2 cm-3. The termination shock forms, disappears, and reforms periodically, and mixing of the shocked/subsonic solar wind and the LISM plasma occurs due to the presence of ion-neutral friction driven instabilities in the vicinity of the heliospheric nose.
Frisch Priscilla C.
Zank Gary P.
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