Displacement of the Earth's Bow Shock and Magnetopause Due to an Impinging Interplanetary Shock Wave
Abstract
Interplanetary shock waves (ISWs) propagating through the solar wind can collide with the earth's bow shock, resulting in a series of new shocks, contact discontinuities, and rarefaction waves which interact to effectively move the bow shock and magnetopause toward the earth. A one dimensional MacCormack predictor corrector algorithm with Flux Corrected Transport (FCT) was developed to model the ISW bow shock and magnetopause interactions, and to numerically predict their propagation speeds after collision. Analytic relationships for the Mach numbers and propagation speeds of the generated shock waves and contact discontinuities were used to validate the model and to compare numerical results. In both the gas dynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) fluid approximations the model predicted propagation speeds of the moving bow shock to within five percent of analytical solutions. Propagation speeds of the moving magnetopause were also determined to within five percent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA335576
Entities
People
- William A. Olson
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology