Weakly-shocked flows of the solar wind plasma through atmospheres of comets and planets

Details Weakly-shocked flows of the solar wind plasma through atmospheres of comets and planets Weakly-shocked flows of the solar wind plasma through atmospheres of comets and planets

Oct 1973

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1973p%26ss...21.1647w&link_type=abstract

Planetary and Space Science, Volume 21, Issue 10, p. 1647-1660.

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The quasi-one-dimensional continuum description of the solar wind's ionizing interaction with neutral atmospheres is employed to describe the transsonic flow upstream of the body. The subsonic flow is approximated by assuming constant total energy density. Weakly-shocked solutions are found to mass-accreting flows, and they pass continuously over to shock-free solutions for low spatial gradients in the ionization rate. Flow computations currently in progress at Munich are in good agreement with these solutions. Cometary shocks are subcritically weak, and probably heat the electrons, but only moderately. These shocks occur inside the ionization region, close to the innermost position for strictly one-dimensional mass-accreting flows. These features conflict with the earlier flow calculations, which are in error as the authors (Biermann et al., 1967) now recognize. The previous computational method is judged to be invalid. The shocks ahead of Venus and Mars can also be subcritical if the relevant density gradient is provided by a supra-thermal atmospheric component, or if charge exchange interactions effect rapid cooling of the plasma. Now at Mathematical Institute, St Giles, Oxford, England.

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