Change of Rankine-Hugoniot Relations during Postshock Relaxation of Anisotropic Distributions

Michael Gedalin, Michal Golan, Nikolai V. Pogorelov, Vadim Roytershteyn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Collisionless shocks channel the energy of the directed plasma flow into the heating of the plasma species and magnetic field enhancement. The kinetic processes at the shock transition cause the ion distributions just behind the shock to be nongyrotropic. Gyrotropization and subsequent isotropization occur at different spatial scales. Accordingly, for a given upstream plasma and magnetic field state, there would be different downstream states corresponding to the anisotropic and isotropic regions. Thus, at least two sets of Rankine-Hugoniot relations are needed, in general, to describe the connection of the downstream measurable parameters to the upstream ones. We establish the relation between the two sets.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number21
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume940
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Nov 2022

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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