Theoretical study of the solar wind interacting with an unmagnetized planet in space and in laboratory

Abstract

Martian bow shock the solar wind interacting with the unmagnetized planet will be studied We theoretically investigated how the solar parameters such as solar wind dynamic pressure and solar EUV flux influences the bow shock location which is still currently not well understood This theoretical study will be used to design the laboratory space science experiments The experiment will be implemented by producing a supersonic plasma jet with Mach number up to 20 which will be generated using a conical wire array flowing through an obstacle The conical wire array will be driven by a 6 kJ pulsed-power system in the Institute of Space and Plasma Sciences National Cheng Kung University Taiwan Although the shock formation mechanism is different in space and laboratory condition we have shown that through the analysis of the Euler similarity studying the Martian bow shock location in our potential experiment is feasible We present the formula for the location of the bow shock nose for the interaction between the solar wind and unmagnetized planet This formula will be used to design future experiments We calculate the bow shock location the sum of the ionopause location and standoff distance in the gasdynamics approach We determine the ionopause nose location using pressure balance formula The standoff distance of the bow shock is determined by a semiempirical model proportional to the radius of curvature at the ionopause nose We derived the formula of the shock nose position which depends upon the scale height in ionosphere dynamic pressure of the solar wind and the peak pressure of the ionosphere Furthermore we derived the equation of the ionopause profile around the nose The preliminary comparison of our theory with the results of the gasdynamics simulation and the spacecraft measurement will be presented Our derived formula is consistent with the simulation and the spacecraft measurement results

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Po-Yu Chang (Supervisor)