Application of the Blast Waves in the Solar Wind Concept to Major Interplanetary Shocks during the Solar Maximum Year / SMY /

During the SMY there were a number of solar flare initiated shock events that were observed at varying radial distances from the sun. The propagation characteristics of these shock fronts can be deconvolved into two separable components. These are the shock front resulting from the impulsive release of energy from a solar flare and the pre-existing solar wind which vectorially combine to yield the disturbance speed toward the observation location. From an empirical deconvolution of the solar-flare-initiated shock into separable components the authors find that a general characteristic of the shock front speed profile in the solar wind frame is a slope of -0.5, the same as expected for a blast wave.