The effect of a coronal shock wave on the solar wind ionization state
Abstract
In connection with studies of solar wind ionization state freezing, it is shown that, by using a Lagrangian approach of following individual fluid parcels, the techniques used previously for calculating ionization state variations in a steady state case can be extended straightforwardly to time-varying flows. The specific ionization state calculations presented are for a relatively simple picture of time-dependent coronal flow, based on a well-known model of a self-similar shock wave propagating through the corona. Time-dependent ionization effects for the sudden transition between two otherwise steady flows are likely to be limited to a narrow range of gas parcels which, having been shocked within the coronal freezing-in radius, pass a fixed interplanetary observer in an interval of a few tens of minutes. The amplitude of any rise in interplanetary ionization temperature associated with the coronal shock is likely to be considerably smaller than the jump in electron temperature that actually occurs in the corona.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 1983
- DOI:
- 10.1086/161457
- Bibcode:
- 1983ApJ...274..414O
- Keywords:
-
- Gas Ionization;
- Interplanetary Medium;
- Shock Wave Propagation;
- Solar Corona;
- Solar Wind;
- Magnetohydrodynamic Flow;
- Oxygen;
- Photosphere;
- Shock Heating;
- Solar Diameter;
- Solar Physics