Collisionless Quasi-Shock Wave in a Longitudinal Magnetic Field

Abstract

Numerical studies of steady, one-dimensional, quasi-shock waves in a collisionless plasma are made for the case where the shock waves are propagating along a uniform magnetic field. It is supposed that the flows of ions and electrons ahead of the shock wave consist of two cold streams respectively, which have different velocities from each other. Numerical computations are carried out using fluid equations for the streams and Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field. Behind the wave front the plasma and magnetic field oscillate rather irregularly about mean values, which are different from the values ahead of the wave front.