Bibliographic Citation
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| Title | Shock heating of the solar wind plasma |
| Creator/Author | Whang, Y.C. ; Liu, Shaoliang (Catholic Univ. of America, Washington, DC (United States)) ; Burlaga, L.F. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (United States)) |
| Publication Date | 1990 Nov 01 |
| OSTI Identifier | OSTI ID: 5051758 |
| Other Number(s) | Journal ID: ISSN 0148-0227; CODEN: JGREA |
| Resource Type | Journal Article |
| Resource Relation | Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States); Journal Volume: 95:A11 |
| Subject | 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; SOLAR WIND; SHOCK HEATING; DISTANCE; ENTROPY; HELIOSPHERE; MATHEMATICAL MODELS; PIONEER SPACE PROBES; SHOCK WAVES; SOLAR PROTONS; VOYAGER SPACE PROBES; WAVE PROPAGATION; ATMOSPHERES; BARYONS; ELEMENTARY PARTICLES; FERMIONS; HADRONS; HEATING; NUCLEONS; PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; PLASMA HEATING; PROTONS; RADIATIONS; SOLAR ACTIVITY; SOLAR ATMOSPHERE; SOLAR PARTICLES; SOLAR RADIATION; SPACE VEHICLES; STELLAR RADIATION; THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES; VEHICLES |
| Description/Abstract | The authors present a study of all shocks observed from Pioneers and Voyagers in 1973-1982. The average shock strength increases with the heliocentric distance outside 1 AU, reaches a maximum near 5 AU, and then decreases with the distance. The increase in the entropy of the solar wind protons across shocks also reaches a maximum near 5 AU. When an average shock propagates through the solar wind, the shock heating increases the entropy of the solar wind protons by approximately 0.8 {times} 10{sup {minus}23} J/K/proton. They also use plasma data from Voyagers and Pioneers between 1 and 30 AU and data from IMP at 1 AU to calculate the increase in the average entropy of solar wind protons with the heliocentric distance. When the distance increases by a factor of 10, the entropy increases by about 4 {times} 10{sup {minus}23} J/K/proton. In order to evaluate the role played by shocks for the heating of the solar wind, they use a MHD simulation model to calculate the entropy changes for the November, 1977 event. Shock heating is the only heating mechanism included in the model. The calculated entropy increase agrees reasonably well with that calculated from observational data. The simulation result suggests that shocks are chiefly responsible for the heating of the solar wind plasma between 1 and 15 AU. |
| Country of Publication | United States |
| Language | English |
| Format | Medium: X; Size: Pages: 18769-18780 |
| System Entry Date | 2008 Feb 06 |
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Last Updated: 11/19/2009