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Bridging the gap between collisional and collisionless shock waves

Part of: Focus on Plasma Astrophysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2021

Antoine Bret Open the ORCID record for Antoine Bret [Opens in a new window]  and
Asaf Pe'er
Antoine Bret*
Affiliation:
ETSI Industriales, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 13071Ciudad Real, Spain Instituto de Investigaciones Energéticas y Aplicaciones Industriales, Campus Universitario de Ciudad Real, 13071Ciudad Real, Spain
Asaf Pe'er
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan52900, Israel
*
†Email address for correspondence: antoineclaude.bret@uclm.es
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Abstract

While the front of a fluid shock is a few mean-free-paths thick, the front of a collisionless shock can be orders of magnitude thinner. By bridging between a collisional and a collisionless formalism, we assess the transition between these two regimes. We consider non-relativistic, non-magnetized, planar shocks in electron–ion plasmas. In addition, our treatment of the collisionless regime is restricted to high-Mach-number electrostatic shocks. We find that the transition can be parameterized by the upstream plasma parameter $\varLambda$ which measures the coupling of the upstream medium. For $\varLambda \lesssim 1.12$, the upstream is collisional, i.e. strongly coupled, and the strong shock front is about $\mathcal {M}_1 \lambda _{\mathrm {mfp},1}$ thick, where $\lambda _{\mathrm {mfp},1}$ and $\mathcal {M}_1$ are the upstream mean free path and Mach number, respectively. A transition occurs for $\varLambda \sim 1.12$ beyond which the front is $\sim \mathcal {M}_1\lambda _{\mathrm {mfp},1}\ln \varLambda /\varLambda$ thick for $\varLambda \gtrsim 1.12$. Considering that $\varLambda$ can reach billions in astrophysical settings, this allows an understanding of how the front of a collisionless shock can be orders of magnitude smaller than the mean free path, and how physics transitions continuously between these two extremes.

Keywords

astrophysical plasmasplasma nonlinear phenomenaspace plasma physics
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 87 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , 905870204
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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